[Casebrief]

From March 21, 2011 to December 13, 2016, sailors including Zhang successively signed a labor contract with the defendant Ganghai Company, and held various sailor positions on the ships of Ganghai. Since August 2017, Ganghai had been in arrears with the payment of the sailors’ remuneration, so Zhang and other sailors terminated their labor contracts with Ganghai, and claimed that Ganghai should pay them the wages, traffic expenses, cooling expenses and economic compensation. Ganghai held the opinion that it had paid the overdue salary to the sailors in January 2019, and the overdue payment was due to financial difficulties rather than malice, so there was no legal and factual basis for Zhang and other sailors to claim economic compensation.

[Judicialdecision]

The first-instance judgment of Tianjin Maritime Court ruled that Ganghai should pay the corresponding economic compensation, traffic expense and cooling expense to the sailors. Both theplaintiffsandthedefendantacceptedthejudgment.

[Significance]

This case is a dispute concerning the sailor employment contract, and has the following significance: after sailors terminate the labor contract in accordance with Item 2, Paragraph 1, Article38 of the Labor ContractLaw(failure topaylabor remunerationinfull andintime), and the ship company should pay economic compensations to the sailors. In judicial practice, there are exceptions to the above provisions. According to Article 4 of the Supplementary Provisions onRelevant Issues Concerning the Interim Provisionson Wage Payment (LaoBuFa [1995]No. 226) and the relevant guidelines of Tianjin Higher People’s Court, if the employer fails to pay the labor remuneration in full and in time due to natural disasters, business difficulties, production suspension and other similar reasons, and it has obtained consent from the labor union or employees’ representatives, such failure should not be deemed “defaulting remuneration without good reason”, and the employees should not claim economic compensation on the ground of the failure to pay. In this case, although Ganghai had entered into the reorganization procedure according to law, and had objective difficulties in production and operation, it failed to provide sufficient and effective evidence to prove that its default of sailors’ labor remuneration had been consented to by the labor union or the employee representatives, and its failure to pay did not constitute an exclusion of “default without good

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reason”. Thus, Zhang and other sailors had the right to claim economic compensation from Ganghai according to law. The judgment in this case can be used for reference in determining the payment of economic compensation under a labor contract dispute and in protecting legal rightsandinterestsofsailors.