Shipowner Not Paying Wages or Company Going Bankrupt? Here's the Exact ITF Complaint Process

Before filing any formal complaint, gather and organize every piece of documentation connected to the wage issue: your signed employment agreement showing the agreed salary, any payslips or wage statements received (or the absence of them), the exact dates wages became overdue, and any written communication with the company — emails, messages, or official notices — regarding the missing payment.

If possible, take photographs or screenshots of everything rather than relying on originals that could be lost, and keep a simple, dated written log of what's happened so far — when wages last arrived, when you first raised the issue, and what response, if any, you received. This documentation becomes the foundation of everything that follows, and gaps here genuinely slow down the process later.

MLC 2006 requires every vessel to have a formal onboard complaint procedure, and using it — submitting a written complaint to the Master or the designated person responsible for handling such complaints — creates an official record and is, in most cases, the correct first formal step if the vessel is still operating and the company hasn't fully disappeared.

This step matters even when you suspect it won't resolve the issue on its own, because it demonstrates you followed the proper internal channel before escalating externally — a detail that can matter when pursuing the claim further through the ITF or flag state authorities later.

Before contacting the ITF, it's genuinely useful to identify two pieces of information: the vessel's flag state (findable through the vessel's registration documents or public IMO databases) and, where possible, its P&I club (sometimes listed in vessel documentation or discoverable through maritime registry lookups). Wage claims are frequently resolved through the P&I club's financial security mechanism, so knowing this in advance speeds up the process considerably.

This information isn't always easy for an individual seafarer to find independently, and this is precisely the kind of research an ITF inspector or a national seafarer union can help with directly — don't consider this step a blocker to moving forward if you can't find it yourself.

The ITF maintains a network of inspectors stationed in major ports worldwide, and contacting the nearest one — either directly if the vessel is currently in or approaching a port with an ITF inspector, or through the ITF's general seafarer support contact channels if not — is the central step in escalating a genuine wage or abandonment issue beyond the onboard process.

When contacting the ITF, provide the documentation gathered in Step 1 clearly and concisely: vessel name and IMO number, the company's name, the specific amount and duration of unpaid wages, and any response (or lack of response) received when the issue was first raised internally. A clear, organized initial contact genuinely speeds up how quickly the ITF can act.

An ITF inspector will typically verify the details of the claim, often by boarding the vessel directly if it's in a port they can access, interviewing affected crew, and reviewing documentation. Where the vessel's flag state has ratified MLC 2006 (the vast majority have), the ITF can also formally notify the flag state administration and, where relevant, port state control authorities of the compliance failure.

In genuine abandonment or bankruptcy cases specifically, the ITF works to identify and engage the vessel's P&I club directly, since the club's financial security mechanism is frequently the actual source of funds used to resolve unpaid wage claims and, where necessary, repatriation costs — this is precisely the connection between P&I coverage and MLC 2006 enforceability discussed in more detail in a dedicated guide elsewhere on this site.

In cases of confirmed vessel abandonment (the shipowner has clearly and demonstrably ceased supporting the vessel, including failing to provide provisions, fuel, or wages for a sustained period), the IMO and ILO maintain a joint database of reported abandonment cases, and the ITF, alongside flag state and port state authorities, can formally register the case in this system, which carries additional international visibility and pressure.

During confirmed abandonment, immediate welfare needs — food, water, medical care if needed — generally take priority in the ITF and relevant authorities' response, alongside working toward the wage claim and repatriation resolution in parallel, since a genuinely abandoned crew's immediate physical wellbeing is the first concern before the financial claim is fully resolved.

Wage claims connected to a genuine bankruptcy or abandonment situation can take time to resolve — sometimes weeks, occasionally longer depending on the P&I club's claims process and the specific circumstances — and maintaining regular contact with the assigned ITF inspector, rather than assuming silence means nothing is happening, helps ensure you stay informed and can provide any additional documentation that becomes relevant as the case progresses.

Throughout this process, connecting with your national seafarer union, where you have one, in parallel with the ITF contact, can provide additional support and sometimes additional leverage, particularly for claims involving seafarers from countries with strong, active union representation specifically engaged in international wage dispute cases.