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15 Jun 2023

Antonia Cundy, The Financial Times

The fishermen

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... in recent decades, the domestic fishing industry has become dependent on ["transit visas"]. As a result, many staples of local fish and chip shops, as well as supermarkets, are the product of a largely invisible workforce. While British consumers imagine their seafood is caught by a local captain birdseye, much of it is, in fact, fished by low-paid migrants employed through an immigration loophole that leaves them vulnerable to exploitation...

This story of four of those men is based on extensive first-hand accounts, corroborated by medical records, contemporaneous messages, photographs, employment contracts, and vessel-tracking data...

Seafood from the boats owned by Quezon’s and Garay’s employers is sold in major British supermarkets, including Asda, Tesco and Morrisons. Young’s Seafood and Whitby Seafoods, two of the largest producers in the UK, have processing facilities in the harbour. The supermarket chains pledged to investigate the allegations in this story. A spokesperson for Whitby called them “deeply concerning” and said the company was awaiting the outcome of an independent investigation...

In separate statements, representatives for MFV Strathmore Ltd, Kearney Trawlers and ANIFPO disputed aspects of the accounts in this article. MFV Strathmore’s spokesperson wrote that “all its crew are treated as valued and respected members of the team.” Kearney Trawlers’s statement noted the company is “proud of its crew” and “fortunate that almost half their crew are from the Philippines, a nation of highly regarded seafarers.”...

... I spoke to other migrant crew elsewhere in the UK who said they had been required to work on land or were otherwise mistreated. The International Transport Workers’ Federation, Stella Maris and the Fishermen’s Mission shared more than a dozen recent accounts of alleged abuse involving employers elsewhere not detailed in this article, including several which are the subject of modern slavery investigations...

Kearney Trawlers and MFV Strathmore said crew are paid according to industry norms, around £25,000 per annum, including food allowances and bonuses. But according to crew on the companies’ boats, as well as signed contracts they showed me, they were making roughly £14,000 a year...

Boat owners are legally required to report accidents to the MAIB “by the quickest means possible”, according to the agency’s website. But Garay’s injury would not be reported for 60 days; Quezon’s would go unreported for 189 days. Kearney Trawlers said its protocol at the time prioritised medical treatment and “has been revised to ensure that any serious accident or injury is reported to the MAIB as soon as practicable”.

MFV Strathmore denied that injured crew undertook “inappropriate manual fishing work” and said it facilitated travel to medical appointments.)

Kearney Trawlers said that Quezon’s manning agency, Eagle Clarc Shipping Philippines Inc., agreed to repatriate him and that it “was advised that the only remaining care he required was physiotherapy [which] could be properly concluded in the Philippines”. Eagle Clarc did not respond to a request for comment...

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