A grim Christmas for foreign fishing crews

The Mari­time Uni­on says the arrest of shipjump­ers in Nel­son is not solv­ing the cause of the prob­lem.
Six Viet­namese shipjump­ers were arres­ted on Tues­day night in Nel­son.
Mari­time Uni­on Gen­er­al Sec­ret­ary Tre­vor Han­son says action is needed to ensure that crew mem­bers are being employed under decent con­di­tions.
“This Christ­mas, there will be over­seas crews work­ing in New Zea­l­and waters in dan­ger­ous con­di­tions, for low pay, suf­fer­ing abuse and exploit­a­tion, while we turn a blind eye because it is mak­ing a fat profit for someone.”
Mr Han­son says pres­sure must go on on employ­ers, not the pen­ni­less vic­tims of the cur­rent sys­tem.
He says if the author­it­ies are ser­i­ous about end­ing shipjump­ing, the answer is simple – they must end exploit­a­tion and abuse of over­seas crew aboard fish­ing ves­sels work­ing in New Zea­l­and waters.
“If the over­seas crew were being paid the New Zea­l­and min­im­um wage, they’d be run­ning up the gang­way.”
Mr Han­son says the crew mem­bers are so des­per­ate they will go on the run, liv­ing and work­ing in con­stant fear, ripe for abuse and exploit­a­tion.
“The fact they prefer to do this rather than stay on board the fish­ing ves­sels shows what is going on off the coast of New Zea­l­and.”
He says that treat­ing the shipjump­ers like crim­in­als is simply draw­ing atten­tion away from the ugly side of “pir­ate cap­it­al­ism.”
Mr Han­son says the Mari­time Uni­on is con­cerned that under free trade agree­ments, the use of low-wage, cas­u­al work­ers impor­ted from over­seas will become nor­mal.