Work in Fishing Convention

On 14 June 2007, the Work in Fishing Convention was adopted by the International Labour Organisation in Geneva.

The Convention is designed to ensure that workers in the fishing sector are guaranteed fair and dignified working conditions. Measures cover the lives of fishers from recruitment to retirement. They include:

improved occupational safety and health and medical care at sea

the right for sick or injured fishers to receive care ashore

the right to take sufficient rest

protection of work agreements

the same social security protection as other workers

regulations for the construction of deepsea fishing boats to provide appropriate living conditions

Adoption of the Convention should improve the lives of the world’s 30 million fishers who work on an estimated four million fishing boats. The size of boats and duration of voyages varies greatly. Around 1.5 million fishers work in industrial and deepsea fishing. However, the vast majority of fishers work on small boats in developing countries. These countries are also the major labour-supply nations to the fishing sector. Asia is home to 82% of the world’s fishers.

Delegates voted by 437 to 2 in favour of the Convention. There were 22 abstentions. The accompanying Recommendation was adopted by 443 votes to 0 with 19 abstentions. Conventions of the ILO are binding for the countries that ratify them. Recommendations are not binding but provide guidance.

The Convention will come into effect when it is ratified by ten of the ILO’s 180 member states. Of these ten, eight must be coastal nations. It replaces the seven existing ILO standards on fishing which were adopted between 1920 – 1966 and which covered only a small number of the world’s fishers. An earlier version of the Convention was rejected in 2005 when several nations with large fishing fleets abstained from the vote.

ILO Director-General Juan Somavia said of the new Convention

“Extending the net of social protection and decent work to fishers is an important part of the ILO’s commitment to social justice. In the fishing sector many people face extraordinary and unpredictable hazards, often working long hours in harsh conditions to bring food to our markets. This new instrument will help protect them against exploitation.”

A statement from SAMUDRA, the International Collective in Support of Fishworkers, commented

“Implemented well, the Convention can put an end to the inhuman treatment of fishworkers, particularly of migrant fishers on board distant-water fishing vessels.”

Archbishop Silvano M. Tomasi, Permanent Observer of the Holy See to the United Nations Office, released the following statement prior to the adoption of the Convention:

The proposal of a Convention and Recommendation Concerning Work in the Fishing Sector represents a sign of major progress. It is estimated that some 40 million people worldwide work in the fishing industry; 1.5 million of these are industrial or deep-sea fishers, while the rest are traditional coastal fishers.

The harsh reality of the work environment for fishers, their confined space in the fishing vessels and their vulnerability; their long working hours causing excessive fatigue that can result in serious occupational accidents; the exploitation of children in deep-sea diving who are exposed to injuries and death; and the excessive long periods away from the family; these and similar other considerations have prompted careful negotiations that hopefully will now be brought to conclusion with an additional instrument of protection.

In fact, the proposed Convention and Recommendation can also provide the basis for the elimination of abuse and discrimination inflicted on industrial fishers through the illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing on distant water vessels within the system of open registry.

Inter-related issues of justice, safety and health demand a concerted response to the legitimate claim by fishers that their rights be protected and that their quality of life be advanced. Solidarity cannot extend, of course, to permit over-fishing or to causing damage to ocean life. Such solidarity should instead help fishers and countries that, due to lack of resources, sell their fishing rights to richer countries with evident threat to the survival of small and coastal fishers and consequent destruction of the fish habitat.