The investigation report of Taiwan's Supervisory Court has been released: the case of Fukui No. 1 violating the labor rights and interests of fishermen, 4 units dereliction of duty

Last year, the Kaohsiung fishing boat Fushi was detained in South Africa because of the rights and interests of fishermen, becoming the first fishing vessel in the world to violate the 2007 International Fisheries work Convention, seriously damaging Taiwan's international image, and the Supervisory Yuan took the initiative to file a case for investigation. Supervisory committee members Wang Meiyu and Wang Youling released an investigation report on the 9th, correcting the Council of Agriculture, the Fisheries Department, the Kaohsiung Municipal Oceanic Bureau, and the Labor Bureau, demanding that three negligent staff members of the Council be asked to submit Captain Huang on suspicion of causing civil servants to publish false information. The Fisheries Department said that it respected the findings of the Monitoring Yuan and would re-examine the investigation report to respond.

ILO reveals poor working conditions of Taiwanese fishing vessels   Supervisory Committee believes that the Fisheries Department's response is slow and dereliction of duty

On 17 July last year, the International Labour Organization (ILO) disclosed that Taiwanese fishing vessels violated the Convention on Fisheries work, such as obsolete facilities, insufficient food, and extremely poor safety and hygiene conditions on board. The Fisheries Department issued a press release the next day to refute the allegations, causing an international uproar. It was not until the fishing boat returned to Hong Kong in September that the Fisheries Department went to Indonesia to reopen the investigation. In November, it held a press conference and announced that ship owners would be severely punished in accordance with the "measures for the permit and Administration of employing non-Chinese Seafarers abroad."

However, according to the investigation of the Supervisory Committee, the AFD actually knew as early as May that the vessels had been retained and the deckhands seemed to have been treated unreasonably. The Commission questioned why the AFD still raised a rebuttal on 18 July. Is two months not enough to clarify the truth?.

Cross-ministry communication failure   fishermen's rights ignored

The report of the Supervisory Committee pointed out that in May last year, the Commissioner of the Fisheries Department in Cape Town received the news and went on board to conduct a questionnaire survey. due to language restrictions, the Commissioner did not seek foreign assistance and carry out the investigation, thus delaying the follow-up process for the Fisheries Department to grasp the handling of deckhands and fishing vessels. However, from the limited questionnaire data, such as a monthly salary of less than US $450 and unclean drinking water, it is sufficient to show that the rights and interests of deckhands have been damaged, but the AFD has not dealt with them in a timely manner.

At the end of July, the AFD asked Fukui to return, but it did not continue to track the whereabouts of the vessel and deckhands, and ignored the signal to shut down the fishing vessel. At that time, the fishermen changed their blood in Mosiris, and some of them were asked to sign "voluntary resignation letters" to return home, and they replaced their captains during their return to Taiwan from Mosiris, which the Fisheries Department did not know at all. The Commission is of the view that the head and deputy head of the offshore fishing team has the flaw of dereliction of duty.

After returning to Hong Kong in September, although the Kaohsiung Port Bureau had knowledge of the captain's removal, it did not actively provide information to the Fisheries Department, and how many crew members were on board the fishing boat? The figures held by the Fisheries Administration and the Kaohsiung Municipal Oceanic Administration are also different.

In addition, the Kaohsiung Municipal Labor Bureau, which is in charge of the employment of foreign fishermen, did not actively supervise it in accordance with the law. when the ship returned to Taiwan, it mistakenly thought that the ROC crew should give priority to applying the crew law rather than the labor law. Therefore, when the labor inspection was carried out on September 13, it was determined that there was no violation of the law. It was only on November 28 that the labor inspection was carried out again and the shipowner was punished for 40,000 yuan in violation of the labor law and the name was announced.

"if your protection of human rights is that one ministry will be in charge of a section, and then there are so many administrative walls, disintegration and non-cooperation among the various ministries, then why send so many people outside the library?" Inspector Wang Meiyu said that the Cape Town office had personnel from different bureaus, such as the Ministry of Transport, the Fisheries Department, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and so on, who responded too slowly to the safety inspection of fishing vessels by the South African Maritime Safety Agency. if the Ministry of Foreign Affairs should assist the Fisheries Department in translating resources and have an early grasp of the living conditions of the deckhands, although the Fisheries Department was aware of the matter, it did not actively deal with it, and the handling mechanism within and among the departments of the Fisheries Department needs to be improved.

The Supervisory Committee asks to attach importance to the labor rights and interests of fishermen   the Fisheries Department says that there is already a system.

With regard to the rights and interests of foreign fishermen, the Supervisory Committee believes that the current pre-employment education for deckhands is insufficient, from what kinds of fish can be caught, safety training on ships, and statutory rights and interests, all should be clearly told to the deckhands and shipowners that "human life should not be treated as a waste," Wang Mei-Yu said, and a complete handling mechanism should be established to prevent the recurrence of similar cases.

Wang Guoping, Deputy Director of Fisheries, responded that he "fully respects" the content of the Commission's investigation, but has not yet read the complete investigation report and needs to study it again. With regard to the rights and interests of fishermen, domestic employment is the power and responsibility of the Ministry of Labor, and the part employed abroad will be regulated in the regulations on Offshore Fisheries. At present, a management system has been established and will continue to promote. At a seminar on fishermen's rights and interests held by the EU Labour Administration last week, French and Dutch scholars also affirmed Taiwan's efforts. After all, ocean-going fishing vessels are far away from land management units, and management is not easy for other countries. The Fisheries Department has tried its best to manage it from the evaluation system and punishment of shipowners, deckhands and intermediary companies.