6 Stranded Fishermen Awarded $66,000

About two years ago, 100 Russian seamen working for a Murmansk company on fishing boats off New Zealand were told there was no money to pay their wages and they should go home.


Some cut their losses and left. Others stuck it out awhile, living on the ships without electricity, heat or food, hoping eventually they would get the money they had coming to them. But as the months dragged on, most made their way back to Russia.


But six of the Russian seamen stayed, and on Wednesday they won a drawn-out, 19-month court battle in New Zealand against their company, Karelrybflot, which was ordered to pay them $66,000 in unpaid wages, damages and interest, and provide them tickets home.


Karelrybflot plans to file an appeal, Nikolai Klimashevich, the company's deputy director, said in a telephone interview from Murmansk. For the seamen that may mean a further wait of up to nine months.


Artur Udovenko, former first officer of the Orlovka, one of Karelrybflot's five ships in New Zealand, said by telephone from Christchurch that he is very satisfied by the court's decision and believes it will be upheld by the court of appeals.


Udovenko married a Christchurch woman, Helen McAra, and they had a baby girl, Sofia, in March. "In light of today's judgment and the full victory it represents, we have decided to add the name Victoria to Sofia's names. She will be Sofia Tina Victoria Udovenko," he said.


The seamen's long court battle and the two years they struggled to survive in New Zealand without legal status or pay, Udovenko said, took a heavy toll.


"There was a lot of depression. One of the men was admitted to the emergency psychiatric ward with clinical depression as a direct result of the situation and the constant delays. I often feared there would be a suicide," he said.


"Karelrybflot's threats, withdrawal of provisions and electricity made our wait all the more distressing. They just sat and waited for us to starve to death. During all that time, Mikhail Grinevich [Karelrybflot's New Zealand representative], was living in his own house and driving around in a car.


"And we, stranded 20,000 kilometers from Russia, were wondering what we would be eating in the evening," Udovenko said. "We've had to wait all this time without money or the right to work."


Two of the remaining seamen got jobs in a bakery in exchange for bread and the others also scrambled to find odd jobs. In addition to Udovenko, one other also married a local woman. The others were given shelter in vacant huts on local people's property.


"The generosity of the New Zealand population and the Salvation Army is what saved us," Udovenko said. "We received no help whatsoever from the Russian Embassy - they just kept telling us we should go back home, and didn't even want to talk to us.


The saga began in 1997 when the roughly 100 Russian seamen hired to catch fish off New Zealand's shores were told by their employer that its local agent, Abel Fisheries, was bankrupt and unable to pay their wages.


The seamen were told to go home, where they would be paid their salaries. Most were supposed to receive between $2,000 and $3,000. But those who returned were paid in rubles in an amount that was much less than dollar equivalent.


"Most of the seamen have not received their hard currency pay," said Natalya Petrishche, wife of Vasily Petrishche, the captain of one of the Karelrybflot ships, speaking Wednesday by telephone from Murmansk. "And as for the ruble payment - it was just kopeks."


Hearing that they were unlikely to be compensated fully in Russia initially increased the resolve of those who stayed in New Zealand. For several months, from 50 to 70 seamen lived on the ships without electricity, heating or food supplies.


At one point, the local newspaper The Press reported that Karelrybflot had warned the seamen that police were coming to evict them by force, using batons and tear gas. The police had to assure the rattled seamen that this would not happen.


But eventually most returned to Russia. A local woman paid for one seaman's ticket after he got a telegram saying that his mother had died.


Only the six who stuck it out until the end benefited from the court case, even though others had originally been a party to the lawsuit.


On Wednesday, Justice William Young ordered Karelrybflot to pay a total of 122,000 New Zealand dollars ($66,000) in unpaid salaries, interest and damages to the six Russian seamen. He also ordered the company to pay the air fares for each seaman back to Russia and cover additional costs of $32,000.


He was quoted by The Associated Press as saying that Karelrybflot did not act in good faith by refusing to pay the seamen's wages and in employing tactics to reduce the number of claimants down to six.


Young also granted the seamen the right to a maritime lien on the five Russian ships involved in the dispute or on any other ships owned by Karelrybflot, giving them the right to arrest ships in lieu of payment.


Klimashevich, the company deputy director, said Karelrybflot had cause to appeal the ruling.


"We have contracts [with the seamen] where all the provisions of payments are specified. The seamen have claimed three and a half to four times higher salaries than in the contract and this will be the grounds for the appeal," Klimashevich said.


Udovenko disagreed.


"Well, the contract said that we must be paid according to the time we worked de-facto but not less than two hours a day. Now they claim we worked only two hours while we worked up to 16 hours a day and all this is confirmed in the ships' documentation," he said.


Entangled in the court battle, Karelrybflot restarted it fishing business in New Zealand only in March, with 70 sailors on two of its five ships.


Klimashevich complained that the dispute has hurt the company's relationship with New Zealand authorities, who now take two weeks to issue the seamen visas, instead of one day as in the past.