An Instagram post effectively raises the question whether cruise lines inform other companies when they terminate the employment of a crew member for misconduct. Many crew members work for a variety of cruise employers over the years. It is not uncommon for a ship employee to work for just a few years for say, Carnival Cruise Line, before switching to Royal Caribbean, NCL, HAL or Princess.
Two weeks ago, we commented on an article published by Inside the Magic (“ITM”) titled “Passengers Catch Cruise Line Employee Filming Women In Children’s Bathroom” about a male MSC crew member caught filming women in what was described as a “woman’s bathroom near the Kid’s Club” on the MSC Meraviglia cruise ship. You can read our blog post here: MSC Cruises Crew Member Caught Filming Women in Bathroom.
Yesterday, internet provocateur @TizzyEnt re-posted a video originally posted by Saja on TicTok and made a couple of points perfectly clear:
A MSC crew member was caught by a guest video taping her in a woman’s bathroom near the Kid’s Club. Reportedly, this was the fourth such incident that evening alone. There is no indication that MSC responded to the three earlier incidents and it appears that the company was not interested in this fourth episode. It was not until another guest aggressively knocked on the bathroom stall that he crew member finally reveal himself and admit his wrongdoing. The crew member was not arrested. It is unknown whether MSC reported the crime to either the FBI or state law enforcement or police in Port Canaveral where the cruise originated. MSC Cruises then sent the crew member to his home country.
The main point of the video was there’s no indication that MSC Cruises took any steps to make certain that the former employee does not end up employed on another cruise ship operated by a different cruise line.
In our experience over the last thirty-five years, cruise lines do not share information with each other when crew members commit crimes against guests. The typical scenario is that the cruise line fires the employee and sends him back to this home country without consequence.
Neither does the cruise line trade organization, Cruise Line International Association (CLIA), facilitate the sharing of information when a crew member rapes a guest, despite the likelihood that he will simply apply for a job on a competing cruise line when he arrives back home.
@TizzyEnt asks MSC Cruises the following questions:
What steps are being taken to make sure that this sort of thing doesn’t happen on your cruise line again?
What steps have been taken to make sure this guy not only doesn’t have access to your guests on your cruise ships but doesn’t have access to other cruise lines either?
What steps have you taken to make sure other companies are aware of his behavior?
There is no indication that MSC confiscated the crew member’s phone to determine how many other guests and their children were secretly photographed or videotaped by the deviant ship employee.
We have seen at least one crew member who assaulted our client, a cruise guest, apply for a job as a bartender on a competing cruise line after the first cruise line sent him home after the rape. Princess Cruises accepted the fired employee’s application to work on a Princess cruise ship sailing from the port of Miami. He returned to serving drinks to guests, obviously emboldened by being able to rape a guest with impunity. Princess terminated his job only after I informed Princess’ general counsel that it had hired a rapist, who obviously failed to accurately disclose that he was terminated from his prior job when we filed suit for the shipboard rape.
MSC Cruises has been in the news lately after a crew member raped a cruise guest on the MSC Meraviglia, the same ship as in this video voyeurism case. Today, there were reports that a crew member raped a fellow ship employee on the MSC Seashore.
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Image credit: New York Post