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Vol. 75/No. 39      October 31, 2011

 
NZ: Indonesian fishermen
refuse to accept ill treatment
 
BY BASKARAN APPU
AND GEORGE FYSON
 
AUCKLAND, New Zealand—The Indonesian crews of two fishing vessels here fought for several months against working conditions, demanding back wages and an end to their contracts.

Seven workers walked off the Shin Ji May 25 in Auckland and 32 walked off the Oyang 75 June 20 in Christchurch. Most have since returned to Indonesia.

The ships’ owners, based in South Korea, are contracted to New Zealand companies that hold rights to fishing quotas issued by the New Zealand government.

Crew from the Shin Ji spoke to Militant reporters in Auckland August 20. One of them, Hendra, explained what sparked the walkout. “While we were having dinner, the captain demanded two of the crew members start up a generator, which we knew was not needed until the next day. When they said they would do it after dinner, the captain began verbally abusing them.”

The incident was the last straw. In April the crew had given notice they wanted to end their two-year contracts two months early, an option the company is supposed to allow. Five workers’ contracts were due to expire in June and two in July. If a worker breaks the contract, they can be fined thousands of dollars.

The seven had spent most of the two years at sea, working 18-hour shifts. While a small portion of their wages was sent to their families in Indonesia, most was withheld.

“We worked from 4 a.m. until the daily work was finished, often late in the evening, with short breaks for breakfast and lunch,” said Hendra. “The 10 to 15 minutes we were allowed for lunch gave us not much more time than to get off our heavy work clothes and gloves.”

For meals they were often fed fish bait past its expiration date. The captain and other officers dined on meat, vegetables and fruit. “The initial quota of 10 sets of work gloves was reduced to four pairs; the ration of cigarettes was cut back and, like the fish bait, we discovered the tobacco was past its use-by date,” Hendra explained.

In August 2010 six crew members died when the Oyang 70, a predecessor to the Oyang 75, sank in the Southern Ocean. In response to the incident, the University of Auckland Business School released a study of conditions aboard such vessels.

It described accommodations with little or no heat, dirty drinking water, fish bait fed to crews, lack of protective clothing and safety gear, cover-up of accidents, assaults of crew members, inhumane punishments, sexual abuse, and nonpayment of wages

There are 27 “Foreign Charter Vessels” with some 2,000 crew at any one time fishing off the New Zealand coasts under similar arrangements. The study noted that crews on New Zealand-flagged ships receive up to 10 times higher wages.  
 
 
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