Sinopacific Refutes Reports on Unpaid Wages

Chinese shipbuilder Sinopacific Shipbuilding Group (Sinopacific) has denied media reports on unpaid wages to its shipyard workers that emerged following a workers’ rally in front of one of its subsidiaries Sinopacific Dayang Shipyard (Dayang).

“Sinopacific has noted that certain rumors based on inaccurate and unverified information have been reported as fact,” the shipyard said adding that it reserves the right to take any legal actions it may deem necessary.

Namely, on September 17th, it was reported that part of the subcontracted labor workers were holding a rally in front of Dayang Shipyard to claim for their unpaid wages.

“Some workers had the foregoing behaviors after taking rumors as truth that the company was unable to pay their wages. After full communication with the group’s senior management on site, the real situation was clarified and the rally was quickly dispersed. Wages due were paid in full the following day,” Sinopacific said in a statement.

“In reality, all workers’ wages for the past months had already been paid in full, while those due for August, were delayed for a few days without advance notice, due to the group’s recent equity restructuring and adjustments of inner management procedures,” the statement further adds.

As explained, Sinopacific and the labor service companies agreed on a payment model two years ago, under which workers’ wages are paid directly and fully by Dayang via bank transfer to their individual accounts each month replacing the previous two-month payment model.

The company noted that the recent incident has raised the company’s awareness that in the current context of the shipbuilding industry, whereby growth is sluggish, “there is a general concern among labor service companies and workers that wages cannot be paid as scheduled.”

“Therefore, going forward, the company shall ensure that communication with its workforce is reinforced and that payments of workers’ wages are always carried out timely to avoid unnecessary misunderstandings,” the shipbuilder adds.

In the first half of 2015, Sinopacific delivered 17 vessels in total and achieved an output value of RMB 3.254 billion. At the end of June, the company holds an orderbook of 84 vessels and plans to deliver 45 vessels in total this year. The total output value for 2015 will be 15% higher than the previous year, according to the company’s results, despite the overall slowdown in the shipbuilding industry.