"Late payments to migrant fishers 'not deliberate': Shipowner" 9 August 2024

The owner of the Taiwanese distant water fishing vessel You Fu said Friday it had not deliberately delayed payments to crew members for 15 months and responded to some of the allegations made by Indonesian fishers working on the ship.

Some allegations by the Indonesians made on Wednesday were "false" and hurt the image of Taiwan's distant water fishing industry, Kung Kun-tung (孔坤桐), a director at Taiwan Tuna Longline Association, of which Pingtung-based You Fu is a member, told a news conference.

One crew member claimed that his wife had a miscarriage and urgently needed You Fu's labor broker to transfer the wages he was owed, but his request was denied. Presenting a transfer slip, Kung said a cash transfer was made to a designated account. The crew members seemed to suggest that they often ran out of food and had to eat fish bait and instant noodles, but this was also untrue, Kung said, presenting receipts for NT$1.6 million (US$49,445) worth of food, which she said was proof crew members ate normally. Kung also denied that the skipper had "seized" their passports, saying they were held for safekeeping.

Due to falling fish prices amid high inflation and soaring fuel prices, the shipowner encountered cash flow problems and had to source funds to pay the migrant fishers, who declined to be paid in installments, Kung said...All fishers who were owed wages were paid in full on Thursday under the supervision of the Fisheries Agency, she said...

Meanwhile, Shih Yi-hsiang (施逸翔), a senior researcher at the Taiwan Association for Human Rights, which co-organized Wednesday's news conference, denied that they had tried to show Taiwan's distant waters fishing industry in a negative light by highlighting an isolated case. The NGOs urged the government to stiffen rules in the Act for Distant Water Fisheries to prevent employers from committing acts of "wage theft,"...Withholding salary payments to crew members blamed on cash flow issues is against the Action Plan for Fisheries and Human Rights promulgated by the Fisheries Agency, Shih said...