“Time to lance the boil” in fishing industry shame

The announce­ment of a min­is­te­r­i­al inquiry into for­eign fish­ing char­ter ves­sels in New Zealand waters is long over­due.

The Mar­itime Union says ongo­ing prob­lems with the abuse and under­pay­ment of over­seas crews on joint ven­ture ves­sels in New Zealand waters have become an inter­na­tion­al embar­rass­ment.

Mar­itime Union of New Zealand Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary Joe Fleet­wood says the Mar­itime Union and Inter­na­tion­al Trans­port Work­ers Fed­er­a­tion (ITF) had inter­vened in numer­ous cas­es in the past few years.

“We are inter­est­ed to see the indus­try is now call­ing for the inquiry, but we have been call­ing for an inquiry like this for years. It has been a long time com­ing.”

Mr Fleet­wood says the cur­rent reg­u­la­tion of the New Zealand fish­ing indus­try and joint ven­ture oper­a­tors using inter­na­tion­al crews was being shown up as a fail­ure.

“It is time to lance this boil. There needs to be a thor­ough inves­ti­ga­tion of the indus­try and imme­di­ate con­crete steps, not just talk, to clamp down on the abuse and exploita­tion of over­seas crews in New Zealand waters.”

Mr Fleet­wood says the Union will be demand­ing that the min­is­te­r­i­al inquiry is not just a “smoth­er job” that sits on the book­shelf gath­er­ing dust.

“This must not be a box tick­ing exer­cise. We know what the prob­lems are, what we need now is action, prop­er reg­u­la­tion, prop­er enforce­ment, to clean up a mess that has been allowed to grow for years under suc­ces­sive Gov­ern­ments.”

He says the Union wants an indus­try with world class wages and con­di­tions for all work­ers, and employ­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties for New Zealand work­ers in their own indus­try.

Mr Fleet­wood says a recent inci­dent where 32 crew left the Oyang 75 in Lyt­tel­ton ear­li­er this month was an exam­ple of some of the prob­lems in the indus­try.

The com­pa­ny respon­si­ble for char­ter­ing the Kore­an ves­sel, South­ern Storm Fish­ing, were the char­ter­ers of the ves­sel Oyang 70 that sank last year with the deaths of six crew.

In May 2011, South­ern Storm Fish­ing held a “media event” in Dunedin where jour­nal­ists were invit­ed on board to inspect their new replace­ment ves­sel, the Oyang 75.

But less than two months lat­er, the crew of the new flag­ship of their fleet have aban­doned the Oyang 75 en masse in Lyt­tel­ton, claim­ing phys­i­cal and ver­bal abuse and under­pay­ment.

In the lat­est devel­op­ment, a diplo­mat from the US State Depart­ment is cur­rent­ly vis­it­ing New Zealand as part of a inves­ti­ga­tion into glob­al “human traf­fick­ing” which includes the abuse of fish­ing crews.

Mr Fleet­wood says the Mar­itime Union is meet­ing with Ambas­sador Luis Cde­Ba­ca dur­ing his vis­it tomor­row to dis­cuss con­cerns about the abuse of inter­na­tion­al crews in the glob­al and New Zealand fish­ing indus­try.

Back­ground to Oyang 75
A pat­tern of activ­i­ties has been iden­ti­fied by the Mar­itime Union going back sev­er­al years, in rela­tion to the oper­a­tions of South­ern Storm Fish­ing and their ves­sels and crews.

Shin­Ji and Mr Hyun Choi
Depart­ment of Labour is report­ed to be cur­rent­ly inves­ti­gat­ing claims of abuse and under­pay­ment of crew on Shin­Ji.
Crew mem­bers told media they left the ves­sel in Auck­land sev­er­al weeks ago due to under­pay­ment and mis­treat­ment.
The Shin Ji is char­tered by Christchurch-based Tu Ere Fish­ing, went into vol­un­tary admin­is­tra­tion recent­ly.
A direc­tor of the com­pa­ny is Hyun Choi, also a direc­tor of South­ern Storm Fish­ing, cur­rent­ly engaged in the Oyang 75 crew dis­pute in Christchurch.
In 2009 the ITF and Mar­itime Union inves­ti­gat­ed the Shin Ji after 12 Indone­sian crew left the ves­sel.
The rea­sons they gave for leav­ing the ves­sel were non pay­ment of wages, prob­lems with harass­ment from offi­cers, and sub­stan­dard liv­ing and work­ing con­di­tions.
ITF inspec­tor Gra­hame MacLaren report­ed a num­ber of prob­lems – “the ves­sel was in need of a good clean and there were large areas of rust on the deck in the gal­ley, no bed linen, no hot water with the crew expect­ed to show­er in cold sea water. We also point­ed out that the life rafts were almost inac­ces­si­ble due to fish­ing gear being stowed all around them.”
NZ$52,776 in back pay was secured for the crew by the ITF and the crew were repa­tri­at­ed back to Indone­sia despite ini­tial resis­tance from the char­ter­ers.

South­ern Storm media pro­mo­tion
South­ern Storm rep­re­sent­ed by pub­li­cist Glenn Inwood of Ome­ka Com­mu­ni­ca­tions in Oyang 75 media pro­mo­tion in May 2011. Inwood’s pre­vi­ous clients have includ­ed Japan­ese whal­ing indus­try and tobac­co com­pa­nies.

The $1000 “Boun­ty”
An adver­tise­ment placed in the Ota­go Dai­ly Times in 2007 offers an $1000 boun­ty for infor­ma­tion about miss­ing crew mem­ber Kismo Pak­istan who left his ves­sel the FV Oyang 70 in Dunedin on 5 June 2007.
The con­tact list­ed in the adver­tise­ment was Fish­eries Con­sul­tan­cy Lim­it­ed of Lyt­tel­ton and the adver­tise­ment was autho­rized by South­ern Storm Fish­ing (2007) Lim­it­ed of Christchurch.

Breach of RMA
In 2009 South­ern Storm was found guilty of breach­ing the Resource Man­age­ment Act fol­low­ing an oil spill from the Oyang 70 in Port Nel­son. They con­test­ed that they were not the respon­si­ble par­ty, but the judge found oth­er­wise.

Sink­ing of Oyang 70
South­ern Storm char­tered ves­sel Oyang 70 sinks on 18 August 2010, 400 nau­ti­cal miles off Ota­go coast. Six crew drowned.
Sur­viv­ing crew kept away from media when tak­en ashore. The crew were then bused to a secret loca­tion, with police clos­ing the Lyt­tel­ton tun­nel so a media con­tin­gent could not fol­low the sur­vivors’ bus through to Christchurch.
A for­mer police offi­cer involved in the case stat­ed that crew were “treat­ed appalling­ly” (Sun­day Star Times, 12 April 2011).
“All the sur­vivors came with the same sto­ry, and they all said they were haul­ing a bag of fish,” says Greg Lyall, cap­tain of the Amal­tal Atlantis, who res­cued the sur­vivors.
“The ves­sel lent over to one side — the fac­to­ry filled up with water and the engine room filled up with water. There were no alarms, no light­ing, noth­ing, and with­in 10 min­utes the boat was gone and most of them had to swim to the life rafts.”