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.