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26 May

Posted at 16:30h in

The Wi-Fi Now For Fishers’ Rights Campaign issued the following statement on the U.S.-Taiwan Initiative on 21st Century Trade:

On Tuesday, May 23rd, dozens of Taiwanese unions, civil society organizations, and migrant worker organizations in Taipei issued their demands for the U.S.-Taiwan Initiative on 21st-Century Trade to the Taiwanese and U.S. governments, calling on the governments to protect labor and the environment as they negotiate the trade initiative this year.

The Wi-Fi Now For Fishers’ Rights Campaign, represented by the Taiwan Association for Human Rights (TAHR), Serve the People Association (SPA), and the Indonesian Seafarers Gathering Forum (FOSPI), participated in the action to ensure fishers’ rights in Taiwan are protected in the labor chapter of the trade initiative. Our coalition members called for the trade initiative to include special protections for migrant fishers in Taiwan’s distant-water fishing fleet, specifically: guaranteed and secure Wi-Fi communication while at sea to ensure their ILO fundamental labor rights, including the right to form and join unions.

Migrant workers are a major contributor to the Taiwanese economy, with more than 750,000 working in many key industries under unjust and abusive working conditions. More than 22,000 Southeast Asian migrants work in Taiwan’s fishing industry, which comprises over a thousand vessels that fish in all of the world’s oceans. Fishers at sea face forced labor and other abusive conditions that have driven them to organize unions – but without regular Wi-Fi access to connect them back to shore, the ocean is effectively a “no union zone” for too many of these workers. This violates international standards on fundamental labor rights that Taiwan and the United States have committed to upholding as part of the trade initiative.  Our campaign has called on the U.S. and Taiwan to ensure fishers can exercise their international labor rights, including freedom of association, by ensuring access to Wi-Fi communication at sea. 

Seafood production in Taiwan is a pivotal industry for labor and should be addressed in the trade initiative. Taiwan has the world’s second-biggest distant-water fleet and the U.S. is the second largest importer of seafood worldwide. Much of the tuna and other fish that fishers catch on Taiwanese vessels is sold in the U.S. and Taiwan’s fish has been listed on the U.S. Department of Labor List of Goods Produced by Child Labor or Forced Labor for the past two years.  

The Wi-Fi Campaign met with trade negotiators in the U.S. and Taiwan earlier this year and proposed concrete language for the labor chapter that would ensure fishers’ rights are protected in the trade initiative. During this week’s action, the delegation brought their demands to the Executive Yuan, Legislative Yuan and the American Institute of Taiwan (AIT). 

We launched our international campaign to support migrant fishers in their fight for Wi-Fi because the fishers’ have named it as a key component in their fight for their fundamental labor rights at sea. They face extremely severe abuses in Taiwan’s fishing industry, which have been documented by the U.S. government and other actors. Last year, the Biden Administration issued a high-level memorandum identifying forced labor as a major issue in distant water fishing, especially “Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated” or “IUU” fishing.  

We urge the Executive Yuan and the Biden administration to ensure that the U.S.-Taiwan Initiative on 21st Century Trade contains commitments to fundamental labor rights for all workers, including freedom of association, health and safety protections, and elimination of forced labor and discrimination against migrant workers. We will continue our advocacy as negotiations continue. 

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The Wi-Fi Now For Fishers’ Rights Campaign is made up of  U.S., Taiwanese and Indonesian allies, including the Indonesian Seafarers Gathering Forum, or Forum Silaturahmi Pelaut Indonesia (FOSPI), Global Labor Justice – International Labor Rights Forum (GLJ-ILRF), Taiwan Association for Human Rights (TAHR), Stella Maris Kaohsiung, Serve the People Association (SPA), and Humanity Research Consultancy (HRC).

 

Click here for more info about the Wi-Fi Now for Fishers’ Rights at Sea campaign.

06 Jun

Posted at 14:43h in

For Immediate Release

June 5, 2023

Contact:
Rachel Cohen, GLJ-ILRF, racohen78@gmail.com
Tanya Brooks, Greenpeace USA Senior Communications Specialist, P: 703-342-9226, E: tbrooks@greenpeace.org

Ahead of TIP Report, Labor Rights Activists Urge U.S. to Call for Thailand and Taiwan to Protect Migrant Workers and End Forced Labor in Seafood Industry

Seafood Working Group Recommends U.S. Downgrading Taiwan to ‘Tier 2’ and Thailand to ‘Tier 2 Watchlist’ in the 2023 Trafficking in Persons Report

WASHINGTON, DC (June 5, 2023) – Global Labor Justice – International Labor Rights Forum (GLJ-ILRF), Greenpeace USA, and allies in the Seafood Working Group (SWG) today announced their findings of labor rights violations, forced labor, and human trafficking of migrant workers in Thailand and Taiwan and called on the U.S. Department of State to downgrade both countries in its 2023 Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report in order to hold the governments accountable for these abuses.

“In our submissions, workers and their allies make clear that continuous barriers to migrant workers’ ability to exercise their fundamental labor rights, including discriminatory legal frameworks, short-term guest worker policies, and misconduct by authorities, must be addressed to end exploitation,” said Jennifer (JJ) Rosenbaum, Executive Director of GLJ-ILRF. “We intend that the submissions to the State Department bring workers’ experiences into policy-making spaces in the U.S. and in Thailand and Taiwan. Our experience shows that ensuring workers’ fundamental rights to freedom of association and collective bargaining prevents situations of exploitation that lead to forced labor from occurring in the first place.”

Tefere Gebre, Chief Program Officer for Greenpeace USA, said, “For many years, the Greenpeace network has documented serious issues of human trafficking and forced labor in the Taiwanese distant water fishing industry. While lives are at stake, governments and businesses have not addressed these issues with the urgency and resources they require. The revelations in our submission detail issues happening right now and should deepen concerns about the high-risk nature of the seafood supply chain. We call on the U.S. government to increase its monitoring of seafood imports and strengthen efforts to prevent these harms from occurring in the first place. Companies that source these products must prioritize the safety and wellbeing of workers in their supply chains, and ensure their customers receive products free from forced labor and modern slavery.”

Thailand falls short of minimum standards 

The SWG recommends that the U.S. downgrade Thailand to the Tier 2 Watchlist in 2023 as it  continues to fall short of the minimum standards the U.S. has set under the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 (TVPA) to eliminate forced labor. The Government of Thailand has not provided evidence of increasing efforts to combat severe forms of trafficking in persons compared to the previous year, including not adequately adopting the majority of the TIP Office’s Prioritized Recommendations outlined in the 2022 TIP Report.

The Government of Thailand committed in August 2022 to granting migrant workers the legal right to establish labor unions as part of its anti-trafficking efforts, but it has not fulfilled its promise. The government also adopted anti-trafficking measures intended to strengthen the identification of survivors of forced labor, but has not effectively implemented these new policies on the ground. The Thailand submission documents 17 cases of potential forced labor, including cases in which workers are unable to resign due to document retention, withholding of wages, physical violence, debt bondage, or death threats.

“The Thai government needs to ensure migrant workers are paid adequate wages, do not have to pay high fees to brokers, and are not harassed by authorities, as we need decent jobs here because it is not safe to return to Myanmar,” said a female seafood processing worker and member of the Migrant Workers’ Rights Network (MWRN) in Thailand. 

“After progressive parties won most of the votes in Thailand’s recent general election, we are hopeful a future government will implement policies to protect migrant workers’ rights, particularly rights to unionization for all workers, including migrant workers, said Roisai Wongsuban, Senior Program Advisor at The Freedom Fund. 

Taiwan has made insufficient efforts to remain at Tier 1

The SWG also recommends that Taiwan should be downgraded to Tier 2 as it fails to meet the TVPA minimum standards but is making significant efforts to bring themselves into compliance with those standards. To maintain a Tier 1 ranking, governments need to demonstrate appreciable progress each year in combating trafficking. During the reporting period, the Taiwanese government made efforts to improve the working conditions in its distant water fishing industry, however, these have not been appreciable. The findings of this submission show that Taiwan has not made progress on the majority of the TIP Office’s Prioritized Recommendations from their 2022 Report.

“The government has made some improvements in recent years, such as installing CCTV on vessels, increasing crew salaries, and requiring life jackets. However, migrant fishers still remain totally isolated from the outside world when sailing on the high seas for months. Communication access through Wi-Fi on board is the most powerful thing to protect workers’ rights, prevent forced labor, and maintain the mental health of workers on the high seas,” said Ahmed Mudzakir, Chairman, Indonesian Seafarers’ Gathering Forum (FOSPI).

“The 21st Century Initiative on trade between Taiwan and the U.S. is quickly being developed. To facilitate a successful trade initiative between the U.S. and Taiwan and to prevent any products sourced from Taiwan involving labor exploitation, the Taiwanese government should continue to improve its regulatory practices in advancing the rights of distant water fishers. This means ending the two-tiered employment system, properly regulating the recruitment agencies to implement the ILO’s fair recruitment principles, and ensuring internet access and fishers’ freedom of association rights on the high seas,” said Lennon Ying-Dah Wong, Director of the Dept. of Politics on Migrant Workers, Serve the People Association (SPA). 

There have been well-documented cases of labor abuse in the Taiwanese fishing industry. For two years in a row, the U.S. Department of Labor placed Taiwan-caught fish on its list of goods produced by child labor or forced labor. In September 2022, Greenpeace East Asia published the report, Fake My Catch, which documented forced labor indicators on six Taiwan-owned or – flagged fishing vessels supplying to Bumble Bee Seafoods, including excessive overtime and retention of identity documents. Over two-thirds of the surveyed workers reportedly had their wages withheld.  

Click here to read the comments from the Seafood Working Group to the U.S. State Department on Thailand and Taiwan. 

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Global Labor Justice – International Labor Rights Forum (GLJ – ILRF) is a non-governmental organization that works transnationally to advance policies and laws that protect decent work; to strengthen freedom of association and workers’ ability to advocate for their rights; and to hold corporations accountable for labor rights violations in their supply chains.

Greenpeace USA is part of a global network of independent campaigning organizations that use peaceful protest and creative communication to expose global environmental problems and promote solutions that are essential to a green and peaceful future. Greenpeace USA is committed to transforming the country’s unjust social, environmental, and economic systems from the ground up to address the climate crisis, advance racial justice, and build an economy that puts people first. Learn more at www.greenpeace.org/usa.

The Seafood Working Group (SWG) is a global coalition of human rights, labor and environmental organizations that work together to develop and advocate for effective government policies and industry actions to end the related problems of labor exploitation, illegal fishing and overfishing in the international seafood trade.

16 Jun

Posted at 14:00h in

The Groups Say Thailand Should Have Been Downgraded to Tier 2 Watchlist, and Taiwan Downgraded to Tier 2 

Washington D.C. – Global Labor Justice – International Labor Rights Forum (GLJ-ILRF) and allies in the Seafood Working Group (SWG) today said the U.S. State Department is neglecting labor rights abuses in Taiwan and Thailand’s fishing industry as it maintains their current rankings in the latest Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report.

For years, the SWG has urged the U.S. State Department to use its diplomatic power to promote respect for labor rights. This year the group issued its own reports on Thailand and Taiwan, detailing its findings of the government’s failure to prevent and address labor rights violations, forced labor, and human trafficking of migrant workers, and calling on the U.S. State Department to downgrade both countries in the TIP Report, which is the U.S. government’s principal diplomatic tool to engage foreign governments on human trafficking.

Instead, the State Department announced its decision to maintain Thailand at Tier 2 and maintain Taiwan at Tier 1, rankings for countries that are either meeting minimum standards to address labor trafficking or taking significant steps to do so.

“This year’s rankings give a pass to Taiwan and Thailand for repression of workers’ rights. The State Department should not consider any country to be taking significant steps to address trafficking while it fails to protect the freedom of association for vulnerable workers, including migrant workers and fishers. In particular, labor power, beginning with labor rights for all workers, including migrants, must be the focus of any response to forced labor and trafficking,” said GLJ-ILRF Forced Labor Program Director Allison Gill. “The U.S. should only grant Tier 1 or 2 status to a country when the government has developed laws and related practices that ensure migrant workers’ fundamental labor rights, including freedom of association and collective bargaining rights, health and safety protections, and non-discrimination protections. Taiwan and Thailand both fail to meet that standard.”

Fishing workers and their labor organizations in both Taiwan and Thailand and international allies have called for key changes to the industry that will enable fishers in both countries to exercise their fundamental labor rights. In Taiwan, migrant fishers are demanding access to guaranteed, free and encrypted Wi-Fi at sea so they may communicate with each other, and their unions and report abuse in real-time. In Thailand, migrant fishers and seafood processing workers and their allies are demanding the removal of the discriminatory provision in the Labor Relations Act that reserves the right to form and lead a union to Thai nationals only.

“As GLJ-ILRF’s work has shown, freedom of association and collective bargaining rights are critical for workers fighting back against forced labor, particularly migrant workers, and for creating durable solutions, said GLJ-ILRF Senior Seafood Campaign Coordinator Kimberly Rogovin. “The more the global seafood sector is organized, the less abuse arises. Thailand and Taiwan are both major players in the global fishing industry, sending tuna, shrimp, and other seafood and seafood by-products to the U.S. and around the world. In both countries, workers in the industry face serious abuses and barriers to joining and forming unions.”

In its reports, the SWG called on the State Department to use the TIP Report and the ranking process to support these demands. While the 2023 TIP Report discounts labor rights in its rankings — the U.S. Government can and should support labor rights in the fishing and seafood processing industries in both countries in policymaking.

Taiwan has made insufficient efforts to remain at Tier 1

While the TIP Office has chosen not to advance the interests of labor in its assessment of Taiwan, the U.S. government should be using the U.S.-Taiwan Initiative on 21st Century Trade to protect and enhance rights of workers, including migrant fishers, in Taiwan. As part of any successful trade initiative that addresses forced labor in global supply chains, the Taiwanese government should continue to improve its regulatory practices in advancing the rights of distant-water fishers — in particular, ensuring satellite internet access and fishers’ freedom of association rights on the high seas.

“Both the Taiwan and U.S. governments, who have committed to addressing forced labor as part of the worker-centric trade initiative, should treat access to Wi-Fi as a litmus test for meaningful progress on freedom of association and forced labor prevention for migrant fishers,” said Yi-Hsiang Shih, Secretary General of Taiwan Association for Human Rights (TAHR).

Thailand falls short of minimum standards

The State Department should not have issued the government of Thailand a Tier 2 ranking, as Thai law still prohibits the approximately 4 million Southeast Asian migrant workers from forming or leading labor unions, in violation of fundamental labor standards. As part of its TIP 2022 Action Plan, the Government of Thailand committed in August 2022 to develop laws that would grant migrant workers the legal right to establish labor unions but it has failed to do so. The Labor Relations Act remains unreformed. This explicit discrimination in the law has silenced migrant workers and created huge power imbalances, both of which foster the conditions for forced labor.

“Due to exploitative recruitment practices, a majority of migrant fishers arrive in Thailand in debt bondage, where they do not have the ability to change employers, and have their passports and identity documents retained — clear violations of migrant workers’ rights and red flags for forced labor,” said Johnny Hansen, Chair of the International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF) Fisheries Section. “Fishers throughout Thailand are organizing to protect themselves after reporting not being paid properly, being forced to work uncompensated overtime, and working in unsafe conditions—but have been denied basic freedom of association and collective bargaining rights that could improve their situation. Thailand is failing to effectively enforce ILO Convention 188 that establishes minimum standards, and is rapidly backsliding into the abhorrent labor conditions in the seafood supply chain that preceded the EU yellow card in 2015,” Hansen said.

The Government of Thailand has also increased migrant workers’ vulnerability to forced labor by permitting SLAPP suits, which aim to silence workers and human rights defenders, to remain ongoing in the Thai judicial system.

The government has also continued to rely on short-term migration management policies that put migrant workers at greater risk of forced labor.

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Global Labor Justice – International Labor Rights Forum (GLJ – ILRF) is a non-governmental organization that works transnationally to advance policies and laws that protect decent work; to strengthen freedom of association and workers’ ability to advocate for their rights; and to hold corporations accountable for labor rights violations in their supply chains.

The Seafood Working Group (SWG) is a global coalition of human rights, labor, and environmental organizations that work together to develop and advocate for effective government policies and industry actions to end the related problems of labor exploitation, illegal fishing, and overfishing in the international seafood trade.

 

05 Sep

Posted at 01:22h in

TAIPEI – Earlier today, migrant fishers and key allies in the “Wi-Fi NOW for Fishers’ Rights” campaign, which is led by the Indonesian Seafarers Gathering Forum (FOSPI), Global Labor Justice – International Labor Rights Forum (GLJ-ILRF), Taiwan Association for Human Rights (TAHR), Stella Maris Kaohsiung, Serve the People Association (SPA), and Humanity Research Consultancy (HRC), met with the Premier of the Republic of China (ROC) or Taiwan, His Excellency Chen Chien-jen, to share fishers’ first-hand experiences working in Taiwan’s distant-water fishing fleet and to present their proposed solution to improve working conditions in their industry — mandatory Wi-Fi on board all 1,100 Taiwanese distant-water fishing vessels. 

Migrant fishers working in Taiwan’s distant-water fleet are calling for mandatory Wi-Fi on vessels to reduce forced labor risks and to ensure fishers can access fundamental labor rights without fear of retaliation. Every year, Taiwan’s distant-water fishing industry exports roughly 1 billion USD of distant-water fishing products, including tuna and squid, to major global markets. Evidence-based reports show that forced labor is present on Taiwanese fishing vessels, and in 2022 the United States (US) government included fish from Taiwan in its “list of goods and their source countries which it has reason to believe are produced by child labor or forced labor in violation of international standards.”

“We stand at the crossroads of a pivotal moment in the lives of migrant distant-water fishers, who tirelessly work on Taiwanese vessels, contributing not only to the nation’s economy but also to the global seafood industry,” said Mudzakir Achmad, Chairman of Indonesian Seafarers Gathering Forum (FOSPI), which represents migrant fishers in Taiwan’s distant-water fishing industry. “We thank His Excellency Chen Chien-jen for his willingness to listen to us and we hope that he will support us in our petition for mandatory and regulated Wi-Fi access on all vessels. For us, Wi-Fi is not a luxury, but our only means while we are working at sea to connect to our families, to address issues in real-time, and to seek help when needed. It represents a lifeline for those who endure the hardships of distant-water fishing.”

At the meeting, migrant fishers and their allies delivered to His Excellency Chen Chien-jen a petition with over 13,000 signatures supporting the call for mandatory Wi-Fi, including from 1,000 migrant fishers themselves and from more than 10,000 online supporters. 

The “Wi-Fi NOW for Fishers’ Rights” campaign is also seeking inclusion of mandatory Wi-Fi in the labor chapter of the US-Taiwan Initiative on 21st Century Trade, which is currently under negotiation. “Our appeal for mandatory, secure, and cost-free Wi-Fi access for fishers on every Taiwanese distant-water fishing vessel aligns with Taiwan’s own commitments to address forced labor risks in this industry and to comply with International Labor Organization (ILO) Convention 188 on Work in Fishing,” said Valery Alzaga, Deputy Director of Global Labor Justice-International Labor Rights Forum (GLJ-ILRF). 

To guarantee that Wi-Fi is accessible for fishers and supports fishers’ labor rights, migrant fishers and their allies are calling for mandatory Wi-Fi to meet the following key criteria:

  1. Accessibility for all fishers on board; 
  2. Costs of Wi-Fi are not passed on to the fishers; 
  3. Data privacy protections to ensure the confidentiality of fishers’ communications and prevent retaliation;
  4. Reasonable and transparent rules for when and how fishers use it consistent with occupational safety and health for all workers; and
  5. A conflict resolution pathway agreed with vessel owners to remedy violations without retaliation.

The campaign has also called on corporations in or connected to Taiwan’s distant-water fishing industry to participate in a roundtable with industry, labor, and government to discuss Wi-Fi implementation, leading towards a pilot program on several vessels that can inform implementation across Taiwan’s fleet. “Global seafood brands and retailers sourcing from Taiwan should join us to address abusive labor conditions for fishers in their supply chains. Otherwise, these corporations risk continued exposure to forced labor import bans and other similar legal consequences,” said Alzaga of GLJ-ILRF. 

Petition (English) – https://secure.avaaz.org/campaign/en/wi_fi_on_board_loc/

Petition (Mandarin) – https://secure.avaaz.org/campaign/ct/wi_fi_on_board_loc/

Petition (Indonesian) – https://avaaz.org/campaign/id/wifi_on_board_id/

Petition (Japanese) – https://secure.avaaz.org/campaign/jp/wi_fi_on_board_asia_1/

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GLJ–ILRF is a non-profit public-interest organization dedicated to achieving dignity and justice for workers worldwide. GLJ-ILRF focuses on enforcing labor rights and promoting decent work conditions consistent with best practices and International Labour Organization (ILO) standards in the low-wage sections of global supply chains such as commercial fishing. GLJ-ILRF engages in research, policy work, advocacy, and education of the public and consumers.