Cruise line held crew members ‘against their will’ without pay, lawsuit claims

Crew members aboard the Bahamas Paradise Cruise Line are suing the cruise line and several related parties for allegedly forcing them to remain on the ship without pay, according to the New York Post.

Employees say they were held “against their will” and “forced” to sign a document that allowed the company to not pay them while they were kept on board for months amid the coronavirus pandemic, court papers show.

Cruise line officials allegedly “forced” workers aboard the ships on March 14 to sign agreements stating they were okay with losing their pay, and “threatened that they would not be rehired if they did not sign,” states the lawsuit. The company unilaterally terminated its employment contracts with all crew members, according to court papers.

“These workers had no other options than to stay on these ships when the pandemic began. To ask them to stay in their place of business without pay is the equivalent of forced labor,” says defence attorney Michael Winkleman from Lipcon, Margulies, Alsina & Winkleman.

A spokesperson for Bahamas Paradise Cruise Line declined to comment “out of respect to the legal process and the privacy of those involved.”

The lawsuit further alleges that cruise line officials “purposefully and intentionally restrained Plaintiffs against their will on the vessels and did not permit Plaintiffs to leave the vessels to go ashore.”

Crew members from two ships are still being kept aboard the vessels, according to the lawsuit, which estimates that likely more than 10,000 people have been affected.

“The crew were unnecessarily kept on the ships for months on end, many thousands of miles away from their homes and families,” the 21-page lawsuit further states. “Remarkably, there are still crew members effectively held hostage on the ship. This egregious delayed repatriation is tantamount to false imprisonment.”

It’s not clear how many crew members are still on board, and how many, if any, have since been released.

But, over 12,000 cruise ship workers are still at sea after Covid-19 shutdown, according to the New York Post.

That number is down from more than 70,000 in May.