Shipping companies have threatened to fly under another country’s flag after a verdict from the Netherlands Institute for Human Rights that said an Indonesian and Filipino worker should not have been paid less than European staff.

The verdict, published last week, said that two Dutch shipping companies were guilty of unlawful discrimination because they were paying “significantly less” to the Asian workers.

The Filipino man was employed on a Dutch tanker owned by Maritime Performance B.V, and the Indonesian man on a vessel owned by VSO Zwerver I B.V. off the coast of Angola. They did “comparable work” to European colleagues but earned at least 50% less – possibly more if overtime were included.

The shipowners said they had used collective labour agreements based on the “country of residence principle” in order to remain competitive – an argument that did not hold water, according to the non-binding verdict. The Netherlands Institute for Human Rights said that the men were victims of discrimination based on nationality. In the Filipino man’s case, it said there was also racial discrimination.

Shipping companies told the Financieele Dagblad they were concerned that the verdict could be used in civil cases. According to figures from the Royal Association of Netherlands Shipowners KVNR – which was “surprised” at the verdict – almost half of the 23,500 crew employed by Dutch ships are either Filipino or Indonesian.

Director Annet Koster told the FD: “I am worried that shipowners, in anticipation of a civil case, will say: we are changing flags. And once they have left, it is unlikely that they will return.”

A critical report from the labour inspectorate in July reported exploitation of Filipino and Indonesian cleaners at an Amsterdam luxury gym. According to a subsequent Parool investigation, the cleaners were asked to sleep four to a bed, their passports were taken away and they were threatened with no pay.

The Dutch shipping controversy also comes in the wake of a British ferry company P&O Ferries sacking its UK staff en masse in 2022 to take on cheaper foreign crew.

Migrant labour is set to be one of the issues in the upcoming Dutch general election.