A six-month Associated Press (AP) investigation found that about 700 undocumented foreign men from impoverished Southeast Asian and Pacific Island nations make up the bulk of the workforce in the US fishing fleet due to a federal loophole allowing them to take the dangerous jobs without proper work permits, just as long as they do not set foot on shore.
This situation implies that the prized high-quality Hawaiian seafood is caught by local, hard-working fishermen, who are almost all foreign workers confined to American vessels for years at a time without basic rights or protections.
AP investigation also discovered that the fishing crews living in squalor on some boats are forced to use buckets instead of toilets and suffer running sores from bed bugs.
In addition, it denounces that there have been instances of human trafficking, active tuberculosis and low food supplies.
As these fishermen have no visas, they cannot fly into Hawaii, so they are brought by boat. And since they are not technically in the country, they're at the mercy of their American captains on American-flagged, American-owned vessels, catching choice swordfish and tuna.
AP data revealed that each of the roughly 140 boats in the fleet docks about once every three weeks, occasionally at ports along the West Coast, including Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco, but mainly at Piers 17 and 38 in Honolulu. Their catch ends up at fancy restaurants and in supermarkets' premium fish counters across the country, including Whole Foods, Costco and Sam's Club.
According to AP’s investigators all companies that responded condemned the mistreatment of workers. Costco said it was investigating. Wal-Mart, which owns Sam's Club, declined to comment.
Whole Foods spokeswoman McKinzey Crossland said only 1 per cent of the chain store's seafood comes from Hawaii, and she has been assured that boat crews are well paid with bonuses and health insurance. She added that the company is looking into the issue.
The AP obtained confidential contracts and interviewed boat owners, brokers and more than 50 fishermen in Hawaii, Indonesia and San Francisco as part of an ongoing global look at labour abuses in the fishing industry.
Last year, the AP reported about fishermen locked in a cage and buried under fake names on the remote Indonesian island village of Benjina . Their catch was traced to the United States, leading to more than 2,000 slaves being freed. But thousands more remain trapped worldwide in a murky industry where work takes place far from shore and often without oversight.
Under the law, U.S. citizens must make up 75 per cent of the crew on most American commercial fishing boats. But influential lawmakers, including the late Hawaii Sen. Daniel Inouye, pushed for a loophole to support one of the state's biggest industries. It exempted commercial fishing boat owners from federal rules enforced almost everywhere else.
The report also points out that when U.S. Customs and Border Protection and the Coast Guard routinely inspect the Hawaiian boats, at times, fishermen complain they are not getting paid and officers say they tell owners to honor the contracts. But neither agency has any authority over actual wages.
On some boats the fishermen are paid as little as USD 350 a month, but many make USD 500 to USD 600. A lucky few get a percentage of the catch, making it possible to triple their wages. The men are willing to give up their freedom to take these jobs because the pay is better than they can make back home in developing countries where many people live on less than USD 1 a day.
As the AP investigation has revealed, oat owners pay brokers to bring the men from overseas — mostly from Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam and the tiny Pacific island nation of Kiribati. It costs about USD 10,000 to get each fisherman to Hawaii. In the long run, foreign crews end up being cheaper than bait and ice.
Workers typically sign two- or three-year renewable contracts, and some extend repeatedly, staying up to a decade on boats with five to six crew.
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