Martin Lex is the pen name of the 7S1L safety desk: SOLAS, lifesaving and firefighting gear, muster drills, emergency signals and safe work on board. Portrait is illustrative.
Stand on the aft deck of a Marshall Islands-flagged tanker and the nearest RMI government office is not in Majuro. It is in Reston, Virginia, a short drive from Washington. The registry is administered there by International Registries, Inc. (IRI) on behalf of the Republic of the Marshall Islands Maritime Administrator. Strange on a map. Practical for you, because an MLC complaint on a Marshall Islands flag ship lands on a desk in a US office park, in a US time zone, with staff who answer in business English.
The geography changes how you file, not whether you can. The machinery is the same as on every flag that has ratified MLC 2006: on-board procedure first, flag state second, port state and union open the whole time. What changes is the address, the marine notice that governs the procedure, and the exact email that gets read.
Why your flag state answers from Virginia
The Marshall Islands runs an open registry, which means the ships rarely touch Majuro and the administration lives where the shipping business lives. IRI manages the register from Reston and keeps offices in shipping centers around the world. The register is the third largest on earth, behind Liberia and Panama, at around 200 million gross tons (Lloyd's List, 2025). The tonnage leans toward tankers and gas carriers, and the flag also registers yachts, commercial and private.
Two practical consequences. First, correspondence runs in English on US Eastern office hours, and the administration is staffed like the company it is. Good news when you need a reply and not an out-of-office. Second, the flag held its place on the White Lists of both the Paris MoU and the Tokyo MoU through 2025, so an RMI ship is not a priority target for port state control by default. Your complaint has to bring its own weight. For the wider picture of what open registries mean for your contract, read flags of convenience and seafarer contracts first.
The law behind your SEA
The RMI has ratified MLC 2006. The law behind your seafarer employment agreement is the Marshall Islands Maritime Act 1990 (MI-107), with section 861 covering grievances, plus the MI-108 Maritime Regulations, section 7.53.1. The on-board complaint procedure on RMI ships follows Marine Notice MN-7-053-1. So the legal machinery is real, published, and specific. A complaint that references it gets read differently from one that does not.
Before you fight over the contract, be sure what the contract says. Clauses that should stop you at the manning agency desk are collected in seafarer employment agreement red flags.
Step one: the on-board complaint under Regulation 5.1.5
First step stays the same on every flag: the on-board procedure. File in writing, keep a dated copy, name the date in everything you send later. MLC Regulation 5.1.5 protects you from victimization for filing, and MN-7-053-1 repeats the ban in plain words: any adverse action, or the threat of one, against a seafarer for lodging a complaint is prohibited.
The marine notice is specific about what the shipowner owes you. You get a copy of the complaint procedure together with your SEA, or the company posts it on laminated posters in the mess room, the control rooms, and the cabins, in English and in the working language of the ship. Someone on board must be named who can advise you confidentially and sit with you in hearings if you ask. Every complaint and every decision on it must be recorded, with a copy to you.
The chain runs immediate supervisor, head of department, master. You have five days from the incident to raise it, and each level gets five more days before it moves up, where the seriousness of the matter allows that pace. You can go straight to the master at any time, or to the company's Designated Person Ashore (DPA). If the complaint is about the master, skip him. The notice says so directly: present the case to the DPA.
Filing an MLC complaint with the Marshall Islands flag state
Second step: the registry. MN-7-053-1 names the complaint address in paragraph 1.3: seafarers@register-iri.com, the RMI Maritime Administrator's contact for any complaint alleging a breach of your rights under MLC 2006 or RMI law. The postal address printed on every marine notice is the Office of the Maritime Administrator, c/o Marshall Islands Maritime and Corporate Administrators, Inc., 11495 Commerce Park Drive, Reston, VA 20191-1506 USA. Complaint routing for seafarers also runs through the Seafarers section of register-iri.com.
The same package you would build for any administration, addressed to the office in Virginia. A working order for the email, so an inspector can act on the first read:
- Subject: MLC complaint, ship name, IMO number, Marshall Islands flag.
- First lines: your rank, sign-on date, where the ship is now, where you are now.
- The breach in one sentence, with the MLC standard named if you know it.
- A dated timeline, five to ten lines. Numbers, not adjectives.
- Attachments: SEA, wage statements, rest hour records, the dated on-board complaint.
Then the clock the notice sets. The Administrator communicates the complaint to the company DPA, who is expected to resolve it under the terms of your employment. If conciliation fails within 20 days, either side has a further 20 days to call on the Administrator, or an appointed agent, as mediator. Past that sits arbitration under Maritime Regulation 7.53. One caveat from the notice itself: not every grievance falls within the Administrator's purview. One more reason to name the MLC standard you rely on.
Free crew appSeafarer Contract CheckCheck your contract clause by clause against MLC 2006 and flag state regulations. The check is free. On iPhone, Android or in the browser.
If the ship is in port and it cannot wait
Port state control can inspect an RMI ship against the MLC in any port that enforces the Convention, and MLC Regulation 5.2.2 gives you an onshore complaint route to the port state authority directly. The ITF handles cases on RMI ships continuously. RMI's own marine notice lists port state control officials, union representatives, and seafarer welfare services as legitimate external authorities, so nobody can tell you that going outside the company breaks the rules. Flag state, port state, union: three separate doors, and walking through one does not close the others.
The triangle is the same on the other large open registries, with different addresses. We mapped the Panama route and the Liberia route in their own articles.
Evidence: build the file before you need it
Most complaints are lost in the weeks before they are written, when the evidence walks off the ship one document at a time. Collect while you still have access to the ship's office and your own cabin locker.
- Your signed SEA. Standard A2.1 entitles you to your own original.
- Wage accounts, month by month. A missing monthly statement is itself a finding under Standard A2.2.
- Your rest hour records. The ship must keep them. Ask for your copies.
- A photo of the posted complaint procedure, or a note that it was not posted. That absence belongs in your complaint.
- Dates, names, short notes: who said what at the gangway, in the mess, in the ship's office.
Check your contract against MLC 2006 before or during the fight: free MLC Contract Check, flag set to Marshall Islands. The report cites the exact standard behind every finding, so your email says Standard A2.2 instead of "they underpaid me". How the tool reads a contract clause by clause is covered in how to use the MLC Contract Check.
7SHORT1LONG® is a Seafarer Identity Brand, built for crew who read the contract before they sign it. The same discipline packs a sign on set the night before the flight and wears a seafarer hoodie for the 0300 mess room talk where cases like these first get spoken out loud. If your next ship is one of the register's tankers or gas carriers, the ship type t-shirts were made for that world. Know your flag, know your route.
How the Marshall Islands flag rates in port state control
Port state control keeps score on every flag. The regional inspection regimes publish each year which registers get detained most, and the ITF keeps its own list of flags of convenience. This is where Marshall Islands stands on the current lists:
- Paris MoU (Europe and Canada): white list, rank 21 of 69, performance list valid July 1, 2026 to July 6, 2027.
- Tokyo MoU (Asia Pacific): high performance, inspections and detentions 2022 to 2024.
- ITF: listed as a flag of convenience, 2025 list.
- MLC 2006: party to the Convention.
These lists count detentions, not contracts. A white list flag can still sit under a bad SEA, and a black list flag tells you how much backing to expect from the administration when something goes wrong on board. The current rating of every flag we cover stands on the Marshall Islands flag page, and the app report names MLC 2006 plus the flag at the top of every check, with the same rating next to it.
Source note
Registry structure and complaint contacts: RMI Maritime Administrator via register-iri.com (Seafarers section) and Marine Notice MN-7-053-1, which names the complaint email, the deadlines, and the victimization ban quoted above. Fleet size and ranking: Lloyd's List, Top 10 flag states 2025. Seafarer rights overview: ITF: your rights under the MLC. This article is editorial context, not legal advice. For a live case, talk to the ITF, a maritime lawyer, or a welfare organization such as Mission to Seafarers or Stella Maris.
FAQ
How do I file an MLC complaint on a Marshall Islands flagged ship?
Start with the on-board procedure under MLC Regulation 5.1.5 and keep a dated copy. If that fails or the case is serious, email the RMI Maritime Administrator at seafarers@register-iri.com with the ship's name, IMO number, your rank and contract dates, a dated timeline, and copies of your SEA and wage statements. Port state control and the ITF stay open as parallel routes.
Can I complain directly to the flag state without finishing the on-board procedure?
Yes. MN-7-053-1 gives every seafarer the right to lodge a complaint with the Administrator and lists external authorities, including port state control and union representatives, as legitimate routes. File on board anyway if you safely can, because the dated on-board complaint strengthens every later step.
Is an open registry automatically a bad sign?
No. The flag tells you which law and which administration stand behind the ship, and the RMI publishes its rules and runs a staffed administration. What decides your contract is still the SEA in your hand. Read that first, judge the company by it, and keep your copies.
Where do I find out what MN-7-053-1 requires on my ship?
The on-board complaint procedure must be available to you on board, with the contact of the competent authority included. If nobody can show it to you, that absence itself belongs in your complaint.
Does filing an MLC complaint put my job at risk?
Victimization for filing a complaint is prohibited under MLC Regulation 5.1.5, and MN-7-053-1 states it again: any adverse action, or the threat of one, for lodging a complaint is banned. Retaliation still happens at sea, so document it if it starts. It becomes part of the case.
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