Europe’s first worker-driven scheme to help tackle labour abuses and exploitation at sea has launched.
Developed by Focus on Labour Exploitation (FLEX), the International Transport Workers Federation (ITF) and the Fair Food Programme (FFP), the Worker-driven Social Responsibility (WSR) programme is running as a two-year pilot in the UK after 12 months of planning.
Flex’s chief executive, Lucila Granada, called it a ‘ground-breaking model’. “We are excited to be bringing it to the UK to help restructure the power imbalances that exist in the fishing industry between worker and employer and in particular safeguard working conditions for migrant fishers,” she said.
WSR is an effective model for tackling labour abuses with more than a decade of proven results in industries ranging from agriculture to textiles.
In the UK it will work with the Scottish White Fish Producers Association and others to address concerns such as the transit-visa ‘loophole’ which leaves migrant workers unprotected on vessels outside of the 12 nautical mile limit.
ITF fisheries expert, Chris Williams, said that the Home Office had made some changes to the laws around transit visas but needed to go further. “The change to skilled worker visas is a positive and necessary step,” he said, “but does not cover vessels fishing outside UK waters.”
“This pilot project gives migrant fishers a chance of greater protection, despite the continued use of seafarers’ transit visas to recruit them.”
With funding from Humanity United to run initially for two years, the pilot will be implemented in the north east of Scotland, beginning with outreach work with migrant fishers and stakeholders in two key ports.
