The Tribune

By YOURI KEMP

Tribune Business Reporter

ykemp@tribunemedia.net

Bahamas Paradise Cruise Line will pay back wages totalling $875,000, which were owed to the crew while they were stuck on board their ships over the past two months due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Miami Herald reported that Bahamas Paradise Cruise Line crew members may finally get paid after months of working without wages on the company’s Florida-based ships.

In a settlement agreement reached between the crew members and the company on Friday, the Miami Herald reported that Bahamas Paradise Cruise Line will pay $875,000 to around 275 crew members, according to the lawyer representing the crew, Michael Winkleman. The settlement in the class-action lawsuit is still awaiting approval from a federal judge in Miami.

“We are very pleased with this settlement and we are confident it will fully and fairly compensate the entire crew who were stuck on the ship,” said Mr Winkleman.

Crew members reportedly went months working unpaid and faced threats for speaking out about conditions on board, reported the Miami Herald.

After the US government cancelled cruises on March 14, Bahamas Paradise Cruise Line asked crew members on its two ships the Grand Celebration and the Grand Classica to sign an agreement to continue working without pay. The company said it would pay crew members again as soon as cruising resumed — at that time, estimated as mid-April, but cruises remained cancelled and crew went unpaid and while on board had to pay for necessities like toiletries and bottled water, depleting their savings.”

The Miami Herald reported that in mid-March, Bahamas Paradise Cruise Line presented crew members with a form to sign that said they agreed to stay on board without wages instead of requesting a flight home.

Oneil Khosa, BPCL’s chief executive officer, “boarded the ship in early June and promised each crew member still on board a one-time $1,000 payment by July 25, according to a recording of the meeting obtained by the Herald. July 25 came and went without pay. A teary crew member pleaded with Khosa at another meeting in late July, according to a recording obtained by the Herald”.

The seafarers have little recourse. US labour laws do not apply to cruise ship workers as the companies and ships are registered abroad. The Maritime Labor Convention of 2006 provides the only international workplace protections for seafarers, but the US is not one of the 97 signatories and therefore does not enforce its crew welfare rules.

On August 4, Dragan Janicijevic, 44, a casino worker on the Grand Celebration who made it off the ship and home to Serbia in late June, filed a class-action lawsuit against the company in federal court in Miami alleging the crew had been forced to work without wages.

In an interview with the Palm Beach Post last week, Mr Khosa said the company is struggling to stay afloat.

“The situation has exposed so many of us to so much uncertainty and negativity,” he told the Post. “Economically, at the end of the day, everybody’s trying to do what it takes to survive. To me the most important thing is to stay in business.”

Bahamas Paradise Cruise Line president Kevin Sheehan Jr reportedly held a video conference with crew on the Grand Celebration ship on August 12, 2020, after the Herald published a story about tactics the company used to make crew work without pay during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Currently there are only around 40 crew members that remain on each ship. The $875,000 settlement will cover unpaid wages and the two months’ severance each crew member is guaranteed in their employment contracts, according to Winkleman.