“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.”