September 15, 2016 — HONOLULU — Allegations of harsh treatment of workers in Hawaii’s longline fishing fleet have made headlines nationally.
Now, the industry is defending itself, one day after a grocery store chain stopped buying tuna from Hawaii’s fish auction.
There are 140 longline boats and 700 fishermen in Hawaii’s fishing fleet. The undocumented workers’ employment is legal.
“It’s a very in-demand job for them,” Hawaii Longline Association president Sean Martin said.
University of Hawaii professor Uli Kozok interprets for Indonesian fishermen. He’s heard complaints of physical abuse aboard the boats.
“They’re quite a few stories that I’ve heard where fishermen were beaten by the captain or by the first officer,” he said.
He said fishermen complain of insufficient food and third-world working conditions.
Martin thinks the allegations are unfounded.
“It’s a long ways from slave labor and human trafficking,” he said.
He insists the fishermen are treated fairly and humanely.
“The idea that there’s these abuses going on and nobody knows about it and they haven’t been reported — I can’t buy it,” he said.
Immigration attorney Clare Hanusz helped a foreign fisherman who sustained a serious eye injury. He claimed his captain refused to take him to the doctor.
“So I asked the man could you go and show me what kind of medication that you had been given. He went back on the boat and came back with a vial of Visine,” she said.
The fishermen sign contracts to work for $500 a month.