What the Hormuz crisis tells us about seafarers’ employment rights

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10/07/2026

What the Hormuz crisis tells us about seafarers’ employment rights

Large-scale US attacks on Iran have been stepped up as shipping in the Strait of Hormuz has once again come under fire from the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps. As crew members of one cargo vessel begin court proceedings against their employer, shipping expert Ashley Oro argues that the international community could be doing a lot more to protect seafarers caught up in a conflict showing little signs of abating – and one with major implications for the global economy.

When Personnel Today first covered the growing humanitarian crisis affecting merchant seafarers trapped in the Persian Gulf, the situation was still developing. Thousands of civilian mariners had become caught inside a rapidly deteriorating security environment with little certainty about when they might be relieved or repatriated. Four months on from the start of the conflict, much has changed politically – although now it appears much of the “progress” in negotiations amounted to very little. Operationally, the underlying employment problem remains remarkably familiar.

This week, three former crew members of the Thai bulk carrier Mayuree Naree commenced legal proceedings against their employer following an attack during the Hormuz crisis. According to public reports, the claim alleges that the company exposed them to unacceptable danger by continuing to operate through the Strait despite the deteriorating security situation, that they were subsequently dismissed before their contracts expired, and that they now suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder severe enough to prevent them from returning to sea. The respondents, the Precious Shipping Company, an affiliated firm and the ship’s captain dispute those allegations, maintaining that the voyage complied with the prevailing security guidance and that there was no official advice recommending vessels avoid the Strait at the time.

Human cost

Whatever the eventual outcome, the case illustrates precisely why the wider employment questions raised by the Hormuz crisis deserve attention. The court will determine whether the employer fulfilled its legal obligations in the circumstances, but the proceedings themselves demonstrate that the consequences of the crisis did not end when the fighting subsided. For many civilian seafarers, the experience did not simply involve disrupted contracts or delayed repatriation. It involved prolonged exposure to uncertainty, danger and, in some cases, psychological trauma. The human cost that many feared during the crisis is now beginning to emerge in a form that employment law may ultimately be asked to address.

Once again, the people who keep global trade moving become those with the fewest practical options available to them”

The international community has once again discovered that protecting seafarers during a global crisis is not primarily a question of writing better regulations. It is a question of whether those regulations can be enforced when governments, employers and commercial interests come under pressure. The uncomfortable conclusion is that they largely cannot.

During the Covid-19 pandemic, the world experienced the largest crew change crisis in modern maritime history. Hundreds of thousands of seafarers remained trapped aboard ships months beyond the expiry of their contracts because travel restrictions prevented relief crews from joining vessels. The response was slow, but eventually governments, the International Maritime Organization (IMO), International Labour Organization (ILO), airlines and port authorities built an international framework recognising seafarers as key workers and creating practical mechanisms for crew changes. The experience was widely described as a lesson that must never be repeated.

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Yet four months into the Hormuz crisis, many of the same structural weaknesses have simply reappeared in a different form. This time, the obstacle was not border closures or quarantine requirements. It was war.

The United Nations’ attempt to establish a humanitarian maritime corridor ultimately demonstrated just how limited the existing system becomes once commercial shipping enters an actively contested operating environment.

The proposal depended upon voluntary cooperation between governments, security guarantees from military actors and willingness from commercial operators to participate. Once those assumptions began to break down, the evacuation effort stalled. That should concern anyone interested in employment rights, because the problem is not that international standards do not exist. The Maritime Labour Convention provides extensive protections concerning hours of work and rest, repatriation, medical care, welfare and contractual rights. Those protections remain entirely appropriate during normal commercial operations. The problem is that they assume someone can enforce them.

Legal rights are theoretical

When a vessel cannot safely enter port, when relief crews cannot reach the ship, when insurers refuse to support operations, when airlines will not fly into conflict zones, when governments cannot guarantee safe passage and when employers themselves become operationally constrained, those seafarers’ employment rights rapidly become theoretical. Nobody deliberately suspends the Convention; it simply becomes impossible to comply with. This reveals something uncomfortable about the way international maritime employment has evolved.

Modern shipping has become extraordinarily efficient. Crewing agencies recruit globally. Employment contracts are often structured around temporary assignments rather than permanent employment. Companies minimise retained manpower between voyages because doing so reduces cost during normal operations. That model functions extremely well during peacetime, but it functions remarkably poorly during systemic crises. The industry has, in effect, streamlined itself into a paradox.

The very employment structures designed to maximise efficiency leave little resilience when crew mobility collapses. Companies cannot simply replace crews because they often do not employ sufficient reserve personnel. Agencies cannot rapidly mobilise replacements because travel itself becomes impossible. Governments cannot compel movement because transport infrastructure and security conditions lie outside their control. The result is that the burden falls almost entirely on the individual seafarer. Once again, the people who keep global trade moving become those with the fewest practical options available to them.

Accountability issue

This is not simply a humanitarian issue. It is also an accountability issue. After Covid, numerous reports identified lessons learned, protocols were updated and guidance documents expanded. Yet Hormuz has exposed that the critical weakness was never the wording of the standards themselves. It was the absence of meaningful enforcement mechanisms once extraordinary circumstances emerged.

We still have not built an international employment system capable of protecting them when being essential becomes dangerous”

International maritime law largely depends upon flag states enforcing obligations against shipowners. Employment protections depend upon states exercising oversight over companies and recognising that contractual obligations continue to exist even during emergencies. In practice, those mechanisms become increasingly fragmented precisely when they are needed most. Commercial realities begin to overtake legal theory. Shipping companies face insurance restrictions. Flag states have limited practical reach. Crewing agencies lose operational flexibility. Governments prioritise national security over labour mobility. The legal obligations remain, yet the ability to enforce them steadily disappears.

This creates an uncomfortable moral hazard. If the international system cannot effectively hold organisations accountable during the two largest maritime employment crises in recent history – a global pandemic and a regional war – then what incentive exists for structural reform?

The seafarers remain

Once the headlines fade, vessels resume trading, insurance markets stabilise and supply chains recover, history suggests attention moves elsewhere. The seafarers remain. Many return home after spending months in conditions of prolonged uncertainty, isolation and psychological strain. Some will require long-term support. Most will quietly return to sea because global trade still depends upon them. The system resets until the next crisis.

Perhaps that is the real lesson from the Hormuz crisis. Covid taught us that seafarers are essential workers. The Hormuz crisis has demonstrated that we still have not built an international employment system capable of protecting them when being essential becomes dangerous. The standards themselves are not the failure. The failure lies in believing that standards alone are enough.

Without practical mechanisms capable of functioning during genuine international crises, seafarers’ employment rights become aspirations rather than guarantees. If a global pandemic and an active regional conflict with huge ramifications for the global economy and for global security are insufficient to expose that weakness, it is difficult to imagine what future event finally will.