The Hawaii Longline Association (HLA) welcomes recommendations to Congress focusing on prevention of labor abuse in the seafood industry, Honolulu Civil Beat reported.
After a 2016 investigation by the Associated Press found multiple foreign crewmen working on vessels who lived in squalid conditions and earned as little as $.70 per hour, the longliners have taken steps to improve the conditions of Hawaii’s fishermen.
Eric Kingma, HLA executive director, said the local longline fleet has already taken several steps to ensure Hawaii’s fishermen are treated humanely. While he took issue with some of the findings of the AP articles, he acknowledged it sparked a needed conversation about how foreign fishermen are treated.
“That report did damage to the reputation of our fishery and we’re still dealing with that, but we have to move on,” Kingma said. “Certainly, we took the issue very seriously and responded with our own review of crew, captains and vessel owners.”
Kingma said that the organization’s internal review found no evidence of human trafficking or forced labor in the 140 vessels and nearly 700 foreign fishermen that comprise the HLA fleet. Two Indonesian fishermen settled a human trafficking lawsuit with a California-based captain and vessel owner in 2018, which claimed they were abused verbally and denied medical treatment. The suit said they were trafficked through the Hawaii longline fleet and worked around the islands and off California’s shores.
The association has developed a written code of conduct and crew handbook that outlines how to file grievances and contractual disputes and is translated into the native languages of the fishermen. Many come from Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam and other Pacific Island countries.
The HLA agrees with many recommendations and encourages Congress to take action on legislation that provides work visas to foreign fishermen in the state of Hawaii.
For years, foreign crew members working on U.S.-flagged vessels have caught the fish found in Hawaii’s poke shops, supermarkets and restaurants, but have not been allowed to step foot outside of Honolulu Harbor due to their immigration status. When they’re not at sea, they must remain within the fenced boundaries of the harbor and can fly home at the end of a two-year contract.
Getting the foreign fishermen to Hawaii can be challenging. Before the pandemic hit, vessels traveled to American Samoa to pick up the foreign crew and get to work. But since American Samoa closed its borders, the fishermen now fly to Mexico, where a Hawaiian vessel picks them up.
“It’s inefficient and it’s costly to have the vessels stop fishing and go pick up their crew,” Kingma said. “These crewmen are integral to the fishery just as our migrant workers are integral to the nation’s agricultural system. We need to remedy this situation to allow these guys to have a visa that allows them to fly into Hawaii.”
Hawaii’s federal delegation introduced legislation in 2017 to allow foreign fishermen to come ashore, but it didn’t even get a hearing.
“We’ve been supportive of that for a long time and now is the time to make it happen,” Kingma said. “It doesn’t make any sense for a migrant farm worker to have a visa and a foreign crewman not to have a visa. Both are integral to the production of food in Hawaii. It’s time to fix that.”