Fishing about and about fishing
CHEAP LABOUR
Published in: M. Ben-Yami Column, WORLD FISHING, June 2005
Last March, the Scottish Fishermen’s Federation President Alex West told www.Fishupdate.com: “That’s an alarming fact that there are not enough people coming into the fishing industry characterised by hard work and long hours and with not that great pay… …and the situation is getting worse”. This process has been going on already for decades in many industrial countries, where young people find other trades more attractive. There are the hard work and long hours on ever rocking and rolling deck, and also the many-day separation from home and on-shore activities, and the risks and dangers of fisherman’s life.
No doubt, there has to be a realistic incentive to persuade people to work and even risk their lives in what can be an extremely harsh environment. That incentive, however, varies and in low income countries it would be many times lower than in the UK, USA, or Japan, mainly because in the former prices and costs of investment in family housing or business are much lower.
Enter the other side of the recruitment coin: owners, especially those of large vessels, increasingly prefer to employ transitory or immigrant, hence cheap labour of ample supply. In low-income countries, people who live a hand-to-mouth existence only dream that a member of their family gets a job that provides some money for sending home. Such migrant workers will take enormous risks in terms of personal safety and harsh conditions, including on board fishing vessels, for any acceptable to them wages, however low those might seem in northern eyes.
In many instances foreign fishermen, often unskilled, are recruited to
supplement national crews. For example, Peruvian, Filipino, Chinese and Vietnamese fishermen have been employed alongside national crews, but earned much lower wages. Throughout the world, trawlers, longliners, and squid-jiggers have foreigners working under inferior terms than local crews. The usual answer of the employers' is: "these people are happy with what they get. The few hundreds of dollars they save monthly is a treasure in their country”... etc.".
Maltreatment. The trend of employing "foreigners" on board mainly large, distant-waters fishing vessels is one dubious aspect of globalisation both, because they are taking the place of national fishermen and because in some cases the low-paid crews are badly treated. This practice occurs in many fisheries, not to speak of international poachers. It sometimes borders on semi-slavery and is usually extremely exploitative; the labourers are maltreated, poorly accommodated, and in some cases cheated out of their wages. Shocking reports have been coming on what's going on FOC (flag-of-convenience) and some non-FOC ships employing "cheap" labour. There was even a case of collective suicide by jumping overboard, following atrocities on board - the skipper was arrested in Cape Town. Another skipper was arrested in Falkland Isles for beating his crewmen. Only this year following alleged mistreatment, a largely Chinese crew mutinied against their skipper and chief engineer, while Vietnamese fishermen surrendered to Costa Rican authorities complaining of the mistreatment and physical abuse dealt to them by their captains, both at sea and at port. And all those – only the tip of an iceberg.
Safety. The freedom of employing cheap labour is only one reason for the trend towards registering ships under FOC. The other is the steady ageing of the fishing fleet: 10 years ago nearly half of all fishing vessels were more than 20 years old. FOC enables ship owners not only evasion of taxes, but also to side-step safety and labour regulations, and fishery management limitations.
Some owners, usually well insured, while aware of seaworthiness problems, would for commercial reasons "pressurise” skippers and crews to fish in bad weather. Where the risk is greater the chances are that national crews would demand more pay to go to sea than foreign workers. Skippers may think that they’re sufficiently paid to take risks, but “cheap labour” crews, even if aware of the risk, can only keep their mouths shut.
Social legitimacy. Poor recruitment of young people in industrialised countries, Mr. West complained of, represents only one element of the complex problem of labour in fisheries. Prospective income is one of the most important factors in choosing a trade. Labour cost is one of the most important factors in choosing employees. With infinite supply of manpower and constant influx of immigrant labour there’s little chance of having national fishing fleets in high-income countries manned by national fishermen.
The question is whether a fishery, or for that matter any other industry, is allowed to cross the red line of social legitimacy. What I mean is that whether where there’s legislation or customs that provide national employees with certain social conditions (such as, social insurance, pension, health care, etc., and a generally accepted remuneration scale), they are not averted by employing illegal or otherwise imported "cheap" labour. Financially rewarding the employers, such practice comes at the expense of local fishing people and their communities. If you come to think of it also comes at the expense of the general national interest, non the less because large and medium-scale fishing fleets that employ cheap labour and able to operate at catch levels that would be too low to keep fishing would normally paid fishermen be employed, are more apt to overfish stocks.
The “cheap labour” trend can only be countered by assuring decent minimum wages and employment conditions, accompanied by legislation providing that all on board fishing vessels are employed according to national standards, and by strictly enforcing such rules. This can be reinforced by ruling that only people and entities that are obliged to follow such national laws can own vessels flying national flags, and that national quotas can be allocated, and fishing licenses issued to only such vessels and such owners. Also, labelling, by MSC and similar groups, declaring fish safe, “green”, sustainably fished, etc., should not apply to catches of fleets and vessels where decent and equal employment conditions are not practised.
Would such or similarly targeted steps be taken in the foreseeable future? This is a question for the Northern world fisheries and their governments to answer.