Written for seafarers Reviewed for accuracy by crew who have stood the watch.
Nobody reads a contract slower than a man who has already booked his flight. The ticket is issued, the agent is waiting, the ship sails Friday. That is exactly the moment bad clauses get signed.
Our free contract checker reads seafarer employment agreements clause by clause against MLC 2006. The same ten problems keep coming back. Here they are, each with the provision you can quote when you push back at the crewing office desk.
1. The wage is one lump sum
"USD 1,400 all inclusive" tells you nothing about basic, overtime, or leave pay. MLC Standard A2.2 requires wages paid at least monthly, with a monthly account of what was paid. Ask for the split in writing: basic wage, overtime rate, leave pay. If the agent cannot write it down, that silence is your answer.
2. You paid to get the job
Placement fees are prohibited. MLC Standard A1.4, paragraph 5 puts the cost of recruitment on the shipowner and the agency, never on you. You pay only for your own statutory documents: medical certificate, seafarer's book, passport. A "processing fee" collected at the agency counter is a violation with a paragraph number.
3. Repatriation at your cost
The flight home is the shipowner's bill. Under MLC Standard A2.5 you cannot be required to pay an advance toward repatriation, and it cannot be deducted from your wages unless you were found in serious default of your obligations. Check the service period too: your entitlement to repatriation must kick in at under 12 months on board.
4. Medical costs shifted to you
Free medical care on board and ashore is the standard, and the shipowner carries sickness and injury costs the way MLC Standard A4.2 describes. A clause that makes you pay the doctor in a foreign port, or docks your wages while you are sick, belongs in the red column. Every time.
5. Silence on rest hours
MLC Standard A2.3: at least 10 hours of rest in any 24, at least 77 in any 7 days, divided into no more than two periods, one of them at least 6 hours long. A contract that says nothing about rest, or lets the company waive it "as operations require", removes the one protection that keeps a watchkeeper functional in week nine.
6. A clause that waives your right to complain
Some agreements try to sign away union contact, ITF assistance, or the right to use complaint procedures. MLC Regulation 5.1.5 guarantees an on-board complaint procedure and protects you from victimization for using it. Any waiver of that is void where the MLC applies, and it tells you how the company thinks about its crew.
7. Your money stays with the company until sign-off
The ITF warns against arrangements where the salary accrues on the company's books and you receive only small advances until the contract ends. Insist on monthly payment and a working allotment, so your family sees the money while you are still on board. A company that pays monthly has nothing to hide.
8. What is missing
A contract can fail you by silence. No repatriation clause, no overtime rate, no CBA named. Our checker marks those clauses as missing rather than guessing, because at the bargaining table an absent clause is as dangerous as a bad one. Run your own SEA through the free MLC Contract Check before you sign. It takes about a minute and you can ask the agent better questions the same afternoon.
9. No end date, or a service period over 12 months
The MLC requires a maximum service period of less than 12 months before you are entitled to repatriation (Standard A2.5, paragraph 2), and the agreement must state its duration and the conditions for ending it (Standard A2.1, paragraph 4). "Ten months, extendable for operational reasons" is not a duration. It is the company deciding when you go home.
10. No time to read it, and no copy for you
Standard A2.1, paragraph 1 gives you the opportunity to examine the agreement and seek advice before you sign, and a signed original to keep. An agent who wants your signature at the check-in counter, with the only copy staying in his folder, has a reason. Ask for the PDF by email before the flight.
Watch: 10 red flags in a seafarer contract
Three minutes, all ten flags, the standard to quote for each. The free MLC Contract Check finds them in your own contract in about a minute.
Before the flight
- Check the manning agent is registered and not flagged by the ITF at ITF Ship BeSure.
- Ask whether the previous crew was paid on time. Crew talk. Use that.
- Keep a signed original of the SEA. MLC Standard A2.1 gives you that right, along with the chance to review the agreement and take advice before signing.
Crew questions
Can the agency charge me "documentation costs"?
Only for your own statutory documents, such as the medical certificate, seafarer's book and passport. Anything billed for recruitment or placement itself breaches MLC Standard A1.4, paragraph 5.
The agent promised a higher wage verbally. Does that count?
What you can enforce later is what is written in the SEA and the CBA it names. If the promise is real, the agent can put it on paper. If he will not, you have your answer before the airport.
What happens to my contract when I use the checker?
The document is analyzed and you get a color-coded clause by clause report. How the check works and which sources it uses is documented on the methodology page.
Sources
ITF: wages, ITF: non-payment of wages and Seafarers Rights International: employment agreement.
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