Winning workers' rights
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| South Korean trawler Sureste 707 |
Two years ago 32 Indonesian crewmen
deserted the South Korean deep-sea trawler Oyang 75 in a New Zealand
port. Ship jumping is a serious issue,
but these men are now being hailed as heroes.
Duncan Graham reports from Christchurch.
Streets are unlikely to be renamed in their
honor and there’ll be no national grieving when they pass away, but the
Javanese crew who decided to be slaves no longer have revolutionized a brutal
and poorly regulated industry.
“Their actions have cleared the path for
other crews to follow and exposed the wrongs so many have suffered,” said the
Rev Jolyon White, social justice enabler for the Anglican Church.
His assessment was echoed by Christchurch
Indonesian Society president ‘Nonie’ Elyana Thenu and her predecessor Dr Ani
Kartikasari. (right) “They are brave men,
heroes,” they said. “What they’ve done
has made a difference.”
The words have substance. Publicity about the plight of foreign fishing
crews working on Korean boats fishing icy sub-Antarctic waters have forced the
NZ government to radically change the way these craft operate and crews are
recruited.
New immigration rules have been introduced
impacting on Indonesian agents who hire crews.
The agents must be approved, not charge workers for their services or
hold collateral against the men completing their contracts.
Withholding passports, payouts, land
certificates and other valuables are said to be widespread, holding the
fishermen and their families to ransom.
From May 2016 foreign fishing fleets
operating out of NZ ports will have to follow local legislation. By sailing
under other flags they’ve avoided NZ labor laws restricting work hours, health
and safety rules and minimum pay rates, currently NZ$13.75 (RP 110,000) an
hour.
Academics and lawyers have been helping to
expose cheating, brutality and abuse allegedly suffered by Indonesians on
Korean fishing boats, but Nonie and Ani have been at the sharp end of the
campaign.
There are around 150 Indonesians living in
the Christchurch region. Ani, 50,
arrived to study for a PhD in environmental management and stayed to work at
Lincoln University.
Nonie, 51, (left) followed her Kiwi husband to NZ
17 years ago.
Ani’s involvement started on a June
afternoon in 2011 when she was called to Lyttelton, the port servicing
Christchurch, a city smashed by an earthquake only four months earlier with the
loss of 185 lives.
She found the 32 men shivering in a church.
“They were very cold, most wearing cotton jackets,” she recalled. “The heaters on the walls were on but their
faces could not hide the exhaustion and fatigue from the previous sleepless
night when they discussed their plight together.
“At 4 am that day, they had walked off the
Korean factory trawler they’d worked on for months. In the dark they found the
only church building that was still standing. They waited outside until the
vicar turned up, letting them in and organizing breakfast.
“When asked later how they had found the
church to shelter them they said they had no idea where to find a mosque where
they would expect to find refuge.” There
is no mosque in Lyttelton, also badly damaged by the earthquake.
For the next fortnight government agencies
and Indonesian Embassy staff interviewed the crew. Their employer tried to keep the issue quiet,
but the men said they’d had enough of being underpaid, and suffering physical
and verbal abuse. They also alleged
illegal fishing practices.
This charge attracted the attention of NZ
authorities. This year the Oyang 75 was fined NZ $10,500 (Rp 85 million)
for secretly discharging waste at sea.
Last year it was fined NZ $420,000 (Rp 3.4 billion) for dumping
low-grade fish.
“While all this was going on, the fishing
company threatened to send them home for breach of contract,” said Ani.
“Fortunately, a network of local people had started to form, offering support
and this threat eventually stopped.
“However, the company refused to pay for
the accommodation and food for the reason that the crewmen no longer worked for
them. Their manning agents in Indonesia also started to pressure the crew to go
back to work and even threatening their families back home, misinforming them
that their sons and husbands were in trouble with the authorities in NZ.”
The men were sustained by Indonesian and
Kiwi supporters including one anonymous donor who gave NZ$10,000 (Rp 80
million) for food and lodgings.
This wasn’t the first time Indonesian crews
had made the news. A year earlier the Oyang 70 capsized 740 kilometers
off the NZ east coast when it tried to haul in an extra large catch, drowning
six men including three Indonesians. Their bodies were recovered and
repatriated.
The coronial inquest using evidence from
Indonesian survivors translated by Ani and Nonie found “mismanagement by the
master” sank the ship.
The Maritime
Union said the inquest revealed "a stain on NZ’s conscience that these
ships of shame were allowed to operate."
Nonie has been back to Java twice to help
the men’s families and make a film. She
has also been invited to Korea by a human rights organization to explain how
Indonesian crew are treated when working on that nation’s ships.
The two women also praised Auckland
University researchers and lawyers with the international Slave Free Seas
group for supporting the Indonesian fishermen.
“Whatever it takes”
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Anto Fantanto (left, orange top), Suprianto
(behind) and Entis Sutisna
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The blue-hulled stern trawler Sureste
707 lies idle in a NZ harbor while in Rev Jolyon White’s suburban
Christchurch home three of its Indonesian crew wait for justice.
They were among a group of 21 men who
followed the example of their mates from the Oyang 75 and deserted their
ship in February this year alleging non-payment of wages and abuse. Six other Indonesians decided to stay on
board fearing repercussions against their families, while 18 accepted some
payments and flew home.
But Anto Fantanto,40, of Boyolali in
Central Java, and Suprianto, 29, and Entis Sutisna, 32, both of Tegal, about
300 kilometers east of Jakarta. are staying in Christchurch to take legal
action against their former employer.
Without work visas, and living in a
non-smoking house full of English books and no TV, time drags. However Entis was the ship’s cook so keeps
his mates fed with Indonesian food.
“We were hit by the ship’s officers, though
not in NZ waters, and called a pig and a dog,” said Anto. Entis claimed he had to pay Indonesian
agents Rp 4.5 million to get the job and was owed about NZ $2,400 (Rp 19
million) in unpaid wages.
“It’s very important that Indonesians read
and understand the contracts we are offered,” said Entis. New NZ rules prohibit coercion and debt
bondage but it is difficult to see how these can be enforced in Indonesia.
The men said that through a network of
Indonesian crewmen on foreign vessels they’d got the names and numbers of
people in NZ who would help them if they had legitimate complaints.
Rev White said he and other activists would
“do whatever it takes” to keep the men in Christchurch and help them with their
case. This included running a Facebook site Not in Our Waters to expose
the Indonesians’ allegations.
(First published in The Jakarta Post 8 April 2013)
