AFLOAT OR ASHORE:
A responsibility to labor rights and human rights does not stop at the end of the fishing pier; what happens at sea is still our responsibility, groups say
By Wu Po-hsuan
and Kayleigh Madjar
/ Staff reporter, with staff writer
Labor unions and human rights groups on Friday urged the government to mandate stocking multilingual first-aid kits on deep-sea fishing vessels to prevent captains from monopolizing medical supplies and discriminating against injured workers. Migrant crewmembers are frequently injured at sea, but a lack of timely medical assistance often leads to suboptimal medical outcomes, including amputations or blindness, the groups told a news conference in Taipei. Investigations by labor and human rights organizations indicate clear discrimination by Taiwanese shipowners against foreign crewmembers, who are often verbally abused or threatened when seeking medical treatment, they said.
Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Lin Yueh-chin, first right, holds placards along with representatives from labor unions and human rights groups at a press conference in Taipei on Friday.
Photo: Liao Chen-huei, Taipei Times
To address the issue, civic groups launched a campaign to provide 200 multilingual first-aid kits to deep-sea fishing vessels, which are ready for disbursement. Yilan Migrant Fishermen Union secretary-general Allison Lee (李麗華) talked about a “humiliating” case when a captain required a sick crewmember to be photographed holding his medication as proof.
The union’s chair mentioned an incident when a captain told an Indonesian crewmember he would “throw him into the sea” if he asked for more medicine each time he requested some for a foot injury, Lee said. In another case, an Indonesian crewmember named Mohamad had his finger crushed by machinery, but although he was in urgent need of medical attention, his colleagues were so afraid of being reprimanded that they did not dare ask the captain for bandages or medicine, Lee said. They ended up bandaging his wound using spare supplies they brought from home, she added. The union said it has found serious issues with unstructured labor inspections and misallocated resource budgets. Inspections are often mere formalities, with authorities only appealing to the operators’ sense of morality to correct issues rather than issuing fines, Lee said. Government agencies frequently distribute cheap promotional items such as toothpaste and toothbrushes, overlooking medical supplies that crews actually need, she added. By partnering with the International Transport Workers’ Federation to raise funds for 200 first-aid kits, the groups said they hope to set an example to ensure crews have access to basic medical protection at sea. The action aims to pressure the government to establish a standardized list of required medical supplies with multilingual instructions, the groups said. First-aid kits should be subject to mandatory labor inspections and placed in communal areas on ships to ensure crews can access them autonomously and with dignity, rather than allowing employers to monopolize medical access, they added. Human and labor rights should not stop at the shore, nor should occupational safety standards become void once a ship gets underway, Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Lin Yueh-chin (林月琴) said. She called on the Ministry of Agriculture, the Ministry of Labor and the Ministry of Health and Welfare to establish a standard list of supplies, multilingual instructions, mandatory inspections and space for public access. Under the US-Taiwan Agreement on Reciprocal Trade, Taiwan has committed to ensuring that the rights afforded to deep-sea migrant crewmembers align with those of Taiwanese workers, Greenpeace Taiwan ocean campaigner Kuo Pei-hsien (郭珮嫻) said. There is no excuse to let medical care at sea remain in a nebulous area where it depends on “the captain’s mood and the fisher’s luck,” Kuo added. Lin Yu-liang (林佑亮), who leads the Taiwan ocean campaign at the Environmental Justice Foundation, said that the Indonesian president ratified the International Labour Organization’s Work in Fishing Convention (No. 188) on Workers’ Day earlier this month. This means that market countries in the US and Europe, as well as source countries for fishing labor, would place higher demands on the human rights and labor conditions aboard Taiwanese fishing vessels, he said.