Berita
8 Sep 2025
Penulis : Muhammad Harits
Netherlands Human Rights Institute Ruling on Sailor Wage Discrimination
On the 18th of August, 2025, the Netherlands Human Rights Institute just announced their decision regarding the discrimination of wage inequality against Indonesian and Filipino sailors on Dutch ships.
Taken from Indonesia Maritime News, the Netherlands Human Rights Institute stated that Indonesian and Filipino sailors earned significantly lower wages than European sailors despite performing the same work on Dutch-flagged ships. The institute concluded that discrimination could not be justified on the grounds of the economic impact of higher wages on ship owners or by international law. The institute said that if financial reasons could be used to justify such discrimination, then legislation on equal treatment would have lost its significance.
The Netherlands shipping companies have long employed sailors from Indonesia and the Philippines at much lower wages and with heavier workloads than European sailors. Then, in 2023, an Indonesian sailor and a Filipino sailor who had worked on Dutch-flagged ships filed a legal claim with the Netherlands Institute for Human Rights, alleging that the shipping companies they worked for had discriminated against them.
The hearing at the Netherlands Institute for Human Rights took place in two sessions, one in October 2024 and another in January 2025. The company is alleged to have violated the Dutch General Equal Treatment Act by paying them, as well as thousands of other sailors from Indonesia and the Philippines, significantly less than European sailors, despite performing the same work on Dutch-flagged ships.
Thousands of sailors have expressed interest in joining the Equal Justice Equal Pay Foundation, which is assisting with the case. The Equal Justice Equal Pay Foundation has confirmed that it will take legal action if the Dutch shipping association (Koninklijke Vereniging van Nederlandse Reders) does not immediately provide compensation to the sailors from Indonesia and the Philippines who have suffered from wage discrimination.
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