Spotlight goes on abuse of overseas crews

The Mar­itime Union says the pub­li­ca­tion of a report on the exploita­tion of over­seas fish­ing crews in New Zealand waters by the Sun­day Star Times today has “lift­ed the lid” on what is going on in the indus­try.
Mar­itime Union Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary Joe Fleet­wood says the union has been advo­cat­ing for a com­plete clean up of the joint ven­ture fish­ing indus­try for years to pro­tect work­ers.
“It is good to see the New Zealand media final­ly shin­ing the spot­light into some dark places.”
In recent years the joint ven­ture fish­ing indus­try had seen a string of sink­ings, drown­ings, indus­tri­al acci­dents, reports of vio­lence and abuse, health and safe­ty vio­la­tions, ship jump­ings, appalling work con­di­tions and fail­ures to hon­our employ­ment and wage agree­ments.
Mr Fleet­wood says the Mar­itime Union wants a full audit of the indus­try, includ­ing the stan­dard of ves­sels and open­ing the wages books.
The use of employ­ment agents in the coun­tries of ori­gin for for­eign crews meant the worst prac­tices of Third World economies had become estab­lished in the New Zealand econ­o­my.
“This sit­u­a­tion is what is known over­seas as social dump­ing, or the exploita­tion of cross-bor­der labour in a glob­al­ized econ­o­my.”
Mr Fleet­wood says just because fish­ing ves­sels were oper­at­ing off the New Zealand coast, that did not give oper­a­tors a right to ignore New Zealand stan­dards of employ­ment.
“The New Zealand Gov­ern­ment has tak­en an inef­fec­tive approach, sim­ply because there are big prof­its in it for the com­pa­nies.”
He says the over­seas fish­ing crews are not mem­bers of the Mar­itime Union but the union would con­tin­ue to offer help if asked as the over­seas crews had no oth­er effec­tive rep­re­sen­ta­tion.
Mr Fleet­wood says the Mar­itime Union and the Inter­na­tion­al Trans­port Work­ers Fed­er­a­tion (ITF) has assist­ed crew mem­bers on many occa­sions, orga­niz­ing repa­tri­a­tion of crew mem­bers and the pay­ment of out­stand­ing wages.
The Mar­itime Union of New Zealand is affil­i­at­ed to the ITF, which is orga­niz­ing inter­na­tion­al­ly to improve con­di­tions for sea­far­ers and fish­ing crews.
Mr Fleet­wood says the long term answer is to employ New Zealand work­ers on good wages and con­di­tions in the fish­ing indus­try, rather than allow­ing the worst prac­tices to con­tin­ue.
“New Zealand work­ers have a right to jobs in their own fish­ing indus­try, espe­cial­ly at a time of high unem­ploy­ment.”