[PeterisP]

It is their problem; they will get paid in full by staying on ship (no matter what happens to their employer) but will forfeit that pay by abandoning the ship, and for the officers, there is the abovementioned criminal liability if the abandoned ship causes any harm (e.g. by leaking chemicals from cargo).

[jpatokal]

Not following you here: who exactly is going to pay them if their employer is bankrupt, which is the case here?

[PeterisP]

They're sitting on a ship + cargo that is far more valuable than their outstanding pay, and legally they have a priority claim over all of that.

While the cargo is owned by others, and the ship may be sold during bankruptcy, but maritime law prescribes that none of them can get their stuff until the crew has been paid in full; so in essence they can (and will) hold these billions of dollars of goods as hostage. $16b / 66 Hanjin ships means that an average ship will have cargo $250 million worth, and if anyone wants to receive that cargo, they'll find a way to pay the outstanding wages, which is, rounding to whole millions, approximately 0.

They can also get food and 'maintenance fuel' (enough for running the internal systems, not the huge amount required for main engines) with the ship/cargo as effective collateral, even though they're not the owners - it's the owners legal responsibility to supply that, the crew is authorised to run up a bill and the owner (the new post-bankruptcy owner) will have to pay that or get the ship seized until they do.

The main trouble of these seamen is that it will take an unknown amount of time to get this settled, not that they'd not get paid for these months.

[amazon_not]

If a seaman cannot afford to wait for all this to get sorted, is there anything stopping him from heading for the lifeboat?