Maritime Union welcomes US Government report “spotlight” on New Zealand fishing industry practices

The Traf­fick­ing in Per­sons Report 2012 was released today by US Sec­ret­ary of State Hil­ary Clin­ton.

The State Depart­ment report iden­ti­fies areas of strong con­cern for human traf­fick­ing in New Zea­l­and includ­ing the use of over­seas labour in the fish­ing industry.

Mari­time Uni­on of New Zea­l­and Gen­er­al Sec­ret­ary Joe Fleet­wood con­grat­u­lated the hard hit­ting nature of the report, which was a “major embar­rass­ment” for the New Zea­l­and Gov­ern­ment and fish­ing industry.

“This report con­firms and vin­dic­ates the stance of the Mari­time Uni­on that the dereg­u­lated industry and exploit­a­tion of over­seas labour has been a stain on New Zeal­and’s repu­ta­tion.”

“The Mari­time Uni­on has been push­ing for action on this issue for a dec­ade.”

Mr Fleet­wood says the dam­age to New Zeal­and’s glob­al repu­ta­tion was hard to quanti­fy.

“The blame must be put at the foot of the cow­boy oper­at­ors in the industry, and suc­cess­ive Gov­ern­ment’s who soft ped­alled the issue and only took belated action when forced to. The les­son being they can­’t afford to sweep these dirty little secrets under the car­pet any­more.”

New Zea­l­and was now in pos­i­tion of dam­age con­trol, he says.

The Gov­ern­ment had now basic­ally admit­ted the for­eign crews issue in fish­ing was a “dis­aster zone” and the recently announced plan to phase out for­eign charter ves­sels in the industry reflec­ted this.

The Mari­time Uni­on of New Zea­l­and, as an affil­i­ate of the Inter­na­tion­al Trans­port Work­ers Fed­er­a­tion (ITF), has acted on a reg­u­lar basis to assist for­eign crew mem­bers in dis­tress by rep­res­ent­ing their interests.

“This is simply some­thing we do because in many cases these work­ers were being exploited and abused, and had nowhere else to go. In many cases the Mari­time Uni­on and ITF have gained sub­stan­tial back pay owed and organ­ized safe repat­ri­ation for crews to their coun­try of ori­gin.”

The Mari­time Uni­on was approached by State Depart­ment offi­cials vis­it­ing New Zea­l­and in 2011, includ­ing State Depart­ment Ambas­sad­or at Large Luis Cde­Baca.

Mr Fleet­wood says the Mari­time Uni­on was impressed by the thor­ough­ness of the vis­it­ing del­eg­a­tion who were provided with a full brief­ing and doc­u­ment­a­tion of the Uni­on’s exper­i­ences.

The intro­duc­tion to the State Depart­ment report prom­in­ently fea­tures an advert­ise­ment that appeared in the Otago Daily Times on 5 June 2007 offer­ing a $1000 bounty for inform­a­tion on a ship jump­ing Indone­sian fish­ing crew mem­ber.

The advert­ise­ment is com­pared in the State Depart­ment Report to advert­ise­ments that appeared in the United States in the nine­teenth cen­tury for escaped slaves.