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New Zealand fisheries under spotlight of global union campaign

The New Zealand fishing industry is under the spotlight of a major international union campaign From Catcher to Counter.

The New Zealand fish­ing indus­try is under the spot­light at a major inter­na­tion­al union meet­ing on the Asia Pacif­ic fish­ing indus­try held in Auck­land this week.

The Asia Pacif­ic Fish­eries Work­shop is being held as part of a glob­al union cam­paign “From Catch­er to Counter.”

The new cam­paign is aimed at organ­is­ing fish­ing work­ers, improv­ing and stan­dard­iz­ing con­di­tions for fish­ing work­ers, and devel­op­ing secure employ­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties in val­ue added pro­cess­ing in their rel­e­vant coun­tries.

The cam­paign is a joint effort by two glob­al union fed­er­a­tions, the Inter­na­tion­al Trans­port Work­ers’ Fed­er­a­tion (ITF) and the Inter­na­tion­al Union of Food Work­ers (IUF).

Work­ers rep­re­sen­ta­tives from fish­eries, mar­itime and food pro­cess­ing indus­tries in New Zealand, Aus­tralia, Japan, the Philip­pines, Thai­land, Indone­sia, Fiji and Papua New Guinea have been joined by senior rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the ITF and IUF from the UK and Europe.

The meet­ing will iden­ti­fy pri­or­i­ties for organ­is­ing work­ers in the Asia Pacif­ic region.

The three day meet­ing also fea­tures speak­ers from the Min­istry of Pri­ma­ry Indus­tries, Uni­ver­si­ty of Auck­land, mar­itime lawyers, and cam­paign­ing groups.

The meet­ing is host­ed by three New Zealand unions, the Mar­itime Union of New Zealand (ITF affil­i­ate), the Mer­chant Ser­vice Guild (ITF affil­i­ate) and the Ser­vice and Food Work­ers Union (IUF affil­i­ate), who have cam­paigned to improve con­di­tions and cre­ate jobs in the New Zealand fish­ing and pro­cess­ing indus­tries.

ITF/IUF Fish­eries Pro­gramme leader Liz Black­shaw says the high pro­file of labour prob­lems in the New Zealand fish­ing indus­try made the meet­ing a good start­ing point to work on fish­ing issues in the Asia Pacif­ic region.

“The effec­tive­ness of recent changes to leg­is­la­tion around the fish­ing indus­try has been on the agen­da as well as orga­niz­ing in the wider region.”

 

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