Lessons from the case of crew members jumping ship and fleeing.

(Baonghean) - Over the past 10 days, eight Vietnamese migrant workers on Taiwanese offshore fishing vessels have jumped into the sea and fled. Six of them are from Nghe An, one from Ha Tinh, and one from Khanh Hoa. Fortunately, all the workers were rescued, but this is perhaps not the best solution as it not only endangers their lives but also violates labor laws.

Is there evidence of labor abuse?

Early morning (August 20th), four crew members from Quynh Long commune, Quynh Luu district, who jumped into the sea to escape from a Taiwanese fishing vessel – Le Duc Chinh (22 years old), Dao Ngoc Trung (27 years old), Tran Van Duong (21 years old), and Ho Thanh Tung (30 years old) – have returned home. Looking exhausted after the long journey from Panama to Vietnam, Dao Ngoc Trung, residing in Dai Hai village, Quynh Long commune, stated: In June 2012, he paid 11.5 million VND to a broker to work as a crew member on a Taiwanese fishing vessel named Cheng Cheng Shipping, fishing for tuna. The ship had a total of 25 people on board, including 4 Vietnamese, 16 Filipinos, 1 Indonesian, and 4 Chinese. After departing from a fishing port in Africa, the ship began its tuna fishing trip. Trung's job was cook, while the other three Vietnamese crew members were responsible for preparing bait, casting lines, retrieving lines, and marinating the tuna. The longest-serving employees are Dao Ngoc Trung and his nephew Tran Van Duong (14 months), while the other two have only been on the ship for 9 months.

On the night of August 14th, when the fishing boat docked at a port in the Panama Canal, while no one was paying attention, all four men used plastic containers and life jackets to jump into the sea and swim to shore. After many hours adrift at sea, the four spotted a navigation buoy. They all swam to the buoy, took turns resting, and waited. At 6 am on August 15th, the crew members spotted a patrolling navy ship and signaled for help. Crew member Dao Ngoc Trung said that after being brought ashore by the Panamanian Navy, all four were taken for medical examination and received assistance from officials of the Vietnamese Embassy, ​​who bought them clothes, food, and contacted the ship owner to buy plane tickets to return home.

Earlier, at noon on August 8th, four Vietnamese crew members on a Taiwanese fishing vessel fishing offshore also jumped into the sea with life vests and were rescued by the French Coast Guard. Among the four crew members who jumped to safety, two were from Nghe An province: Hoang Van Hau, residing in Hanh Tien village, Chau Hanh commune, Quy Chau district, and Tran Van Dung, residing in Hamlet 5, Son Hai commune, Quynh Luu district.

The crew members recounted their journey of jumping off the ship and escaping back to their home country.

Upon returning home, Dao Ngoc Trung (27 years old) embraced his wife and children, unable to hold back tears as he recounted his arduous and difficult sea voyage. Before joining the Taiwanese fishing vessel Cheng Cheng Shipping, Trung had worked as a crew member for Taiwanese fishing boats three times. On previous occasions, the boat owners and captains treated him very well, the working environment was not too harsh, and he diligently completed his contracts before returning home.

Being proficient in Chinese, Trung was often assigned the role of cook by the captain. This overseas labor export trip was no exception; cooks like Trung were paid $500 USD per month by the owner of the Cheng Cheng Shipping vessel, while experienced and skilled crew members received $450 USD, and newly arrived crew members around $400 USD. The labor export agency would transfer salaries to their relatives in Vietnam quarterly or monthly. On the Cheng Cheng Shipping fishing vessel, Trung said that the crew members were treated very poorly, especially regarding food and working hours. “As a cook, I was given fish for bait or rotten squid from the warehouse to cook for the crew. Frozen meat was only occasionally available, and even that was rare. Every time it was mealtime, everyone shook their heads in dismay,” Trung recounted. Crew member Tran Van Duong said that every day they had to wake up at dawn and work continuously for about 16-18 hours while enduring extremely harsh food conditions.

While the four crew members from Quynh Long (Quynh Luu) on the fishing vessel Cheng Cheng Shipping explained their reason for jumping into the sea to escape was due to extremely hard working hours and meager rations, the crew members who jumped into French waters to escape did so because they were severely beaten and mistreated, forcing them to jump into the sea to save themselves.

It is both dangerous and illegal.

Nghe An province has a large number of laborers working on foreign fishing vessels, mainly from Taiwan, South Korea, and Japan. The majority of these migrant workers are young people from coastal areas of Nghi Loc district (most notably Nghi Thiet, Nghi Tien, and Nghi Quang communes), Quynh Luu district (most notably Son Hai, Quynh Long, Quynh Tien, and Quynh Phuong communes), and some communes and wards of Dien Chau district and Cua Lo town. Most are poor laborers who lack the money to buy fishing boats to fish in their home waters. Their relatives at home receive monthly or quarterly wages ranging from 5 to 7 million VND.

A few years ago, there were incidents of Vietnamese fishermen being kidnapped or sunk by storms while working on fishing boats. More recently, there have been cases of laborers being mistreated and forced to jump into the sea to escape, causing great anxiety among their families back home. Mr. Tran Quang Ve, Chairman of the People's Committee of Quynh Long commune, stated that approximately 750 people from the commune are currently working abroad. Nearly a year ago, two fishermen from the commune jumped into the sea in South Korea, and to date, the local authorities and their families have not been able to verify the information.

Mr. Ve argued that the actions of the crew members who claimed to have been mistreated, beaten, subjected to harsh working conditions, and given meager food, leading them to jump ship and return home, were not correct, mature, or intelligent. In such situations, crew members could contact their labor supply company on land to report the situation, or contact their families and local authorities for assistance. Jumping into the sea meant the crew members had only two options: death or life, which was extremely dangerous. Not only was it life-threatening, but the crew members' act of jumping into the sea to escape from the fishing vessel violated labor laws and breached their contracts.

In some cases, without the intervention and assistance of the Vietnamese Embassy in other countries, these workers could even face imprisonment or be sent to refugee camps. Upon returning home, they will face risks, including lawsuits from their employers, and will certainly encounter significant difficulties in claiming their rights, as these runaway workers are often owed wages by their employers.

It is an undeniable fact that those who go abroad for work as crew members on foreign fishing vessels are generally healthy and skilled at sea, but their educational level is often low. Many of them have not graduated from high school, lack foreign language proficiency, and go through recruitment agencies. Before boarding fishing vessels, many have not been equipped with the necessary skills in social interaction, foreign languages, or knowledge of the culture of the employing countries and the working environment to cope with unforeseen situations. This is the responsibility of the recruitment agencies and labor export companies.

For those who go abroad for work on land, working in companies and factories, they are quite well-equipped with work discipline and punctuality before boarding the plane. However, working on fishing vessels has its own unique characteristics regarding time, environment, and access to information and telephones. Therefore, labor export companies need to provide more training for their workers through vocational classes and language courses before departure.

Mr. Nguyen Dang Duong, Head of the Labor - Employment - Wages Department of the Nghe An Department of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs, said: Currently, there are about 4,700 workers from Nghe An working on foreign fishing vessels. "Working abroad on fishing vessels is hundreds of times more difficult than working on land, and the income is not high either. The workers are aware of this and accept it from the moment they start the application process."

Working in such a harsh environment, constantly at sea year-round, incidents outside of the contract are almost unavoidable. Most importantly, workers need to remain calm and handle situations appropriately. If they feel mistreated, they can contact the company, the embassy, ​​or even the police in the countries where the fishing vessel docks. Jumping into the sea to escape or for any other purpose is not only life-threatening but also violates the law and negatively impacts the image of Vietnamese workers in general, and those from Nghe An in particular, in the eyes of the international community,” Mr. Duong affirmed.

Nguyen Khoa