The Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) has released a Marine Guidance Note, MGN 474 (M), stating superyacht crew on UK-flagged vessels that do not comply with the Maritime Labour Convention, 2006 (MLC) must be provided with a Seafarer Employment Agreement (SEA), in place of their crew agreements.
Prior to this MGN, SEAs were only requirements for superyacht crew working on MLC-compliant vessels.
Of equal if not more importance to management companies is that the MCA will no longer produce the documentation require for these agreements. “In future it will instead be for shipowners/employers to produce such documentation themselves or arrange for its production,” the note clearly states.
The MGN does not leave “shipowners/employers” in the dark, however, and offers detailed information pertaining to necessary facets of the crew agreements. Included is the crewmember’s rate of wages, about which the MGN states, “Provision must be made for the actual rate of wages of a seafarer to be inserted at the time of engagement. [For] more convenient company pay scales or individual agreements with the seafarers, from which this [pay] may be determined, [details] may be annexed to the agreement, however the entry ‘As agreed’ is not acceptable.”
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