September 19th, 2016 — The U.S. Department of Labor is investigating reports of abusive labor conditions affecting foreign workers on American fishing vessels in Hawaii, Civil Beat has learned.
A Labor Department official said the agency is “deeply disturbed” by news reports about the long hours, low wages and inhumane living conditions suffered by up to 700 workers from Southeast Asia and the Pacific islands. The official said the agency was reaching out to other U.S government agencies to try to figure out what to do about it.
“The Department of Labor is committed to ensuring that workers are treated with respect, fairness, and dignity,” said Labor Department spokesperson Jason Surbey in an emailed statement.
A widely published report by the Associated Press found that some workers are held in prison-like captivity at the piers of Honolulu and San Francisco when the ships are being unloaded. When at sea, the AP reported, they work up to 20 hours a day at wages as low as 70 cents an hour.
Some officials in Hawaii were apparently aware of the issues to some extent because many state and federal agencies share jurisdiction over the fishing industry on issues of employment, business licensing, regulatory oversight and coastline protection.
Kathryn Xian, executive director of the Pacific Alliance to Stop Slavery, said she became aware of the labor abuses and physical confinement of the workers in early 2014, when she was contacted by a family member of a fisherman who felt trapped by his employer. She said she subsequently learned of “egregious” employment conditions in the fleet.
Gavin Gibbon, a spokesperson for the National Fisheries Institute trade group, said the employment practices on the vessels as described in the report are “entirely unacceptable.”
He said visa programs allow for migratory and seasonal workers “but in no cases do they allow for abuses of the kind the Associated Press has described.”