This article is an edited version of one that appeared in the Maritime Union magazine The Maritimes in October 2011. Victor Billot is the Editor of The Maritimes. Ed.

Pressure is building on New Zealand fishing industry bosses involved in joint ventures with overseas vessels and crews. More than 2,000 overseas crew members have been working in what has been described as “virtual slave-like labour conditions” aboard foreign charter vessels (FCVs). The Government announced an official inquiry in July 2011, following ongoing media reports about abuse and exploitation of crews, and held hearings in October 2011 to determine where the industry should be going.

At the same time as the inquiry was being announced, a visiting US State Department diplomat was touring New Zealand as part of a campaign to end “modern day slavery” of vulnerable workers. The two unions involved in the fishing industry, the Maritime Union of New Zealand (MUNZ) and the Service and Food Workers Union (SFWU) appeared before a Parliamentary Select Committee in August 2011, and in that same month a new study from the University of Auckland detailed illegal practices in the fishing industry.

Why have New Zealand companies been allowed to continue to operate with joint venture partners who have breached New Zealand laws and regulations, when the alarm bells were being sounded? It appears as if the problems in the industry have now become so bad that the Government has been forced to take action. In true self-interested style, it appears a key motive is the damage that was being done to New Zealand’s commercial image in overseas markets through the adverse publicity. But why were things allowed to get this bad in the first place?

Inquiry Launched Into Fishing Industry

Minister of Fisheries Phil Heatley and Minister of Labour Kate Wilkinson announced a Government inquiry on the fishing industry on 15 July, 2011. The inquiry will examine alleged human rights abuses of Asian crews aboard overseas fishing vessels in New Zealand waters. The “broad in scope” inquiry will look into labour standards, immigration, and maritime safety and fisheries laws. The effects of New Zealand’s international reputation and trade relationships are also to be considered.

Former Labour government Minister Paul Swain leads the inquiry. The two other panel members are career bureaucrat Neil Walter and corporate accountant Sarah McGrath. The deadline for the panel’s report is 24 February, 2012. The Maritime Union General Secretary Joe Fleetwood says while it sounds good on paper, real answers and real action are required.

“Enforceable rules and regulations for labour standards, and the need for New Zealand to benefit from our own resources, including jobs, are the big issues. This inquiry will need to shine a light into dark places.

“This inquiry is long overdue and the Maritime Union has been calling for one for many years. But we know in advance that this inquiry will confirm what we already know; that disgraceful practices have become the norm and accepted by the industry”. This has caused great harm, says Mr Fleetwood. In 2006 new regulations were brought in to tighten up the rules around overseas crews on joint venture vessels, but the inquiry is effectively an admission that previous efforts have not cleaned up the industry.

International Concerns

The situation of foreign crews has now gained international attention due to the ongoing and serious nature of incidents. The Government is extremely sensitive to any bad publicity causing problems in overseas markets. But the fishing industry’s use of foreign charter vessels has already damaged the reputation of New Zealand. Negative media reports have been published in the home countries of many overseas crews who have been treated poorly – and, in some cases, have lost their lives in dubious circumstances.

Many of these nations also have strong trading and cultural links to New Zealand, including Indonesia, Myanmar/Burma, India and Vietnam. In other high-end markets such as Europe and America, the “clean, green” image of New Zealand is a myth that is now taking a severe hammering. In July 2011, MUNZ met with US State Department Ambassador at Large Luis CdeBaca. Ambassador CdeBaca was visiting New Zealand in his capacity as head of the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, which investigates concerns with the global exploitation of vulnerable workers and “human trafficking”.

The New Zealand fishing industry gets its own mention in the 2011 Trafficking in Persons Report from the Office. “Some foreign workers report being charged excessive and escalating recruitment fees, experiencing unjustified salary deductions, restrictions on their movement, confiscation of passports, and altered contracts or working conditions without their permission – all indicators of human trafficking. According to a press report and the United Nations Inter-Agency Project on human trafficking, there were concerns that some fishermen from Indonesia, Vietnam, and elsewhere in Southeast Asia are allegedly victims of forced labour in New Zealand waters; these men may have experienced conditions including passport confiscation, significant debts, physical violence and abuse, and are often forced to work a seven day work week. No independent research has been conducted to determine the full extent of the trafficking problem in New Zealand”.

The Report recommends New Zealand makes “proactive efforts to identify victims of labour trafficking, particularly among populations of vulnerable foreign labourers” and “investigates and prosecute employment recruiting agencies or employers who subject foreign workers to involuntary servitude or debt bondage”. The concern here has to be that it is an overseas Government, of one of our major trading partners, that has raised these questions, rather than our own.

Workers Deliver Message To Politicians

In August 2011 the SFWU presented a 12,000 signature petition to Parliament in support of New Zealand jobs and fair workplace treatment in the fishing industry. Media reports quoted SFWU member Victor Norman, who has worked in the fishing industry for more than 17 years, telling the Committee that workers in the industry are constantly being threatened to meet company demands or face losing their jobs to cheaper overseas labour. “That made them insecure and people were going to get sick of bad pay and having their rights ignored”, Mr Norman said. Sealord would not give Mr Norman time to attend the Select Committee in Wellington. He came straight from a shift at the factory and was headed back to work after the hearing, without any time off for sleep. ‘If we can tighten up this fishing industry it'll stop them thinking about (going overseas), at the present moment they're abusing something that all New Zealanders own and that's the fish in the sea’” (http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/5387165/Fishing-industry-probe-should-be-broader).

MUNZ also appeared at the Select Committee, with General Secretary Joe Fleetwood stating that foreign workers in the industry were treated “like rubbish” and the country’s fishing industry had turned into a disgrace. Reporting on the evidence presented at the Select Committee hearings, TV3 reported that “a foreign fisherman on Bluff Wharf was seen last year working with a plastic bag over his head as safety goggles . . . Two ships sank off New Zealand last year and 28 foreign sailors drowned. There are Indonesian and Korean crews stuck in Auckland and Christchurch right now with unpaid wages. And MPs were told of passports being confiscated, skippers running fake sets of books, and threats to Department of Labour observers” (http://www.3news.co.nz/Foreign-fishery-workers-mistreated-in-NZ/tabid/423/articleID/221078/Default.aspx).

Investigative Reports Confirm Bad Practices

The Government inquiry comes after a series of investigative reports by Sunday Star-Times journalist Michael Field uncovered evidence of massive breaches of regulations by foreign charter vessel operators. Events took an even more bizarre turn when the Sunday Star-Times reported that Oyang Corporation had paid private investigators to “find out how academics and the Sunday Star-Times obtained information on the slave-like conditions aboard foreign fishing vessels. The private investigators also followed the US Ambassador on Human Trafficking, Luis CdeBaca, when he met university academics and a Fairfax reporter in Auckland”. But the dirty tricks didn’t stop there, as the media were faced by intransigence from the New Zealand authorities. The Sunday Star-Times reported it had asked the Ombudsman to intervene after Maritime New Zealand sought $3,040 for files requested under the Official Information Act relating to foreign vessels. (http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/5402951/Fishing-probe-turns-ugly).

University Study Finds “Routine Lies”

At the same time, Auckland University researchers have released the results of their own studies into the joint venture fishing industry. Their report “Not in New Zealand waters, surely?” (http://docs.business.auckland.ac.nz/Doc/11-01-Not-in-New-Zealand-waters-surely-NZAI-Working-Paper-Sept-2011.pdf) looked at the operations of the Sajo Oyang Corporation of Korea. This company operated the Oyang 70, which sank in 2010 off New Zealand with the loss of six lives. Senior Lecturer Dr Christina Stringer and PhD candidate Glenn Simmons, working with fishing industry figures, carried out Official Information Act requests and interviews, as well as getting paperwork that showed that New Zealand officials were lied to by fishing operators.

The researchers also found joint venture vessels were involved in illegal dumping and “high grading”, throwing quota and by-catch fish overboard in the hope of getting higher value catches later. Beatings and sexual abuse took place, and officers refused to get medical treatment for injured crew members. A New Zealand official quoted in the study described a vessel as a “slave ship” and “a floating freezer” with slum-like conditions. The researchers also investigated the situation of the widow and family of one of the crew who died in the Oyang 70 sinking in 2010.

“Eula” (not her real name), who approached the manning agent in Indonesia for insurance and compensation to assist her family, was sexually blackmailed. In 1999 Eula had helped her husband “Mohammed” to get a job on the Oyang 70 through a manning agent. She had to sell a wedding gift to pay the agent’s fees. The agent would take up to 50% of wages as a fee. The study revealed that a foreigner on an FCV could expect to earn between $6,700 and $11,600 a year while a foreigner working on a New Zealand-flagged fishing boat would earn between $60,000 and $80,000.

A Long History Of Problems

Since 1986 New Zealand fishing has operated under the Quota Management System. Joint ventures involve New Zealand quota holders working with overseas operators and engaging foreign vessels and crews to catch their quota. Overseas crew are exploited as cheap labour in the industry. While overseas crew work in, and near by, New Zealand waters, and come into New Zealand ports to offload catch and take on-board supplies, they are outside effective regulation and protection of New Zealand law and New Zealand authorities.

Other concerns include the environmental standards of overseas operators, the displacement of New Zealand workers, a race to the bottom on wages and conditions, and the health and safety standards aboard overseas vessels. This is a result of the “out of mind, out of sight” attitude from industry and regulators. As overseas crew are not New Zealand citizens, and are not in a position to advocate for their own interests, their rights are overlooked. Extensive studies and reports by Government, labour and environmental organisations, show the abuse and exploitation of maritime crews, especially in the fishing sector, is a major global issue. It is a common theme of IUU (illegal, unreported and unregulated) fishing, that if a vessel has problems in one area, those problems run through to other areas of its operation.

The following incidents are a selection of some recent examples of fishing crew harm, exploitation and abuse within and around New Zealand waters.

May–July 2011
In May 2011, Southern Storm Fishing held a “media event” in Dunedin where journalists were invited on board to inspect their new vessel, the Oyang 75 that replaced the Oyang 70 that sank in 2010. But less than two months later, in July 2011, the crew abandoned the Oyang 75 en masse in Lyttelton, claiming physical and verbal abuse and underpayment. It has been reported that the Oyang 75 is also under investigation by the Ministry of Fisheries over allegations it discarded fish at sea.

July 2011
Overseas crew members left the Shin Ji in Auckland due to underpayment and mistreatment. Department of Labour is investigating. In 2009 the International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF) and MUNZ previously investigated the Shin Ji after 12 Indonesian crew members left the vessel.

December 2010
Five Korean crew are confirmed dead and 17 missing presumed drowned after the No. 1 In Sung sank in the Southern Ocean in unexplained circumstances.

August 2010
Oyang 70 fishing vessel sinks in Southern Ocean. Six deaths. Survivors brought to Lyttelton. Claims of underpayment by surviving crew investigated (Korean, Filipino, Indonesian, Chinese).

June 2009
12 Indonesian fishermen from joint venture fishing vessel Shin Ji leave vessel in Tauranga, citing non-payment of wages, harassment and substandard conditions. $NZ52, 776 back pay obtained for crew by ITF/MUNZ and repatriation to country of origin.

June 2006
Burmese crew aboard Sky 75 in Timaru approach union for help. Wages were unpaid, physical and verbal abuse. Ten Indonesian crew previously jumped ship in Nelson in 2005 with similar claims.

May 2006
Joint venture fishing vessel Malakhov Kurgan involved in crew dispute in Lyttelton. Crew wished to be paid New Zealand minimum wage when working in New Zealand waters. Threats from Ukraine-based employers received by crew.

March 2006
Nine Indonesian fishermen from Korean fishing vessel Marinui jump ship in Dunedin, claiming severe physical and mental abuse. Crew were being paid $US6 per day. Repatriation and back pay organised.

January 2004
33-year old Vietnamese fishermen Vo Minh Que drowned near Stewart Island after falling from the trawler Tasnui. Maritime New Zealand reported that poor condition of vessel and lack of safety gear or procedures contributed to his death.

Fixing The Industry

MUNZ and SFWU, with the backing of the NZ Council of Trade Unions (CTU), have pressed for fishing and processing to be done by New Zealand operators employing New Zealand workers on decent wages and conditions. MUNZ General Secretary Joe Fleetwood says he wants the phase-out of joint ventures. “They’ve been a failure that has resulted in New Zealand being identified internationally as a place where disgraceful practices are condoned”. If overseas crews are phased out, the abuse, exploitation and underpayment will be solved”.

The original promise of a “New Zealandised” fishing industry never materialised. Instead there has been a race to the bottom approach with the exploitation of vulnerable overseas crews, and overseas processing of New Zealand resources. These resources should be providing sustenance and employment for New Zealanders. The decline in New Zealanders working on fishing vessels and in onshore processing plants is a serious problem. The loss of employment opportunities to New Zealand workers has had a bad effect on many local communities, especially at a time of high unemployment.

It has been especially hard on young people, and Maori who have had a strong traditional involvement in this industry. The fact that in some cases the joint venture operators employing overseas crew are iwi-affiliated corporates utilising Treaty settlement quota is especially concerning. Coordinated international action is required to maintain a baseline around wages and conditions, and to regulate the use of labour from deprived communities and developing nations to ensure exploitation does not occur.

At the New Zealand level, MUNZ intends to continue to provide assistance to distressed crew, as well as advocating for stronger regulations and enforcement to protect the human and labour rights of overseas crew working within and around New Zealand waters. A new fishing industry campaign “From Catcher to Counter” has recently been launched by two global union federations, the International Transport Workers Federation (ITF) and International Union of Food Workers (IUF) (http://www.itfglobal.org/fish/index.cfm). The programme seeks to address the fishing industry as whole – from “catcher to counter” – and to increase union membership, improve and standardise conditions, and establish processes to assure that fishing is not “illegal, unregulated and unreported”.

Selected International Reports

“The Changing Nature of High Seas Fishing: How flags of convenience provide cover for illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing”, by Matthew Gianni and Walt Simpson; for the Australian Government Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, International Transport Workers’ Federation, and WWF International (October 2005)

“Out of sight, out of mind: Seafarers, Fishers and Human Rights” International Transport Workers’ Federation (June 2006)

“All at Sea: The abuse of human rights aboard illegal fishing vessels” Environmental Justice Foundation, London (2011)

2011 Trafficking in Persons Report by the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, US State Department (http://www.state.gov/g/tip/rls/tiprpt/2011/164233.htm).