Taiwanese authorities and Indonesian union leaders in a meeting in Taipei on Friday failed to reach any agreements on a proposed memorandum of understanding (MOU) to improve the rights of distant-water fishers.
A delegation comprised of members of five Indonesian unions called for the creation of an MOU that protects the fundamental rights of Indonesian distant-water fishers working for Taiwan-registered vessels.
Such workers were excluded from an MOU signed by the two countries in 2018.
Photo: Lee Hui-chou, Taipei Times
During a two-hour closed-door meeting at the Fisheries Agency, which was also attended by officials from the Ministry of Labor, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Indonesian Economic and Trade Office to Taipei (IETO), the union leaders delivered a petition to the agency and asked them to sign the document, which included appeals they said should be part of the proposed MOU.
The petition demanded that the two governments provide distant-water fishers with decent working conditions pursuant to those defined in the International Labour Organization (ILO) Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work.
It called for fair wages for distant-water fishers employed overseas, currently set at US$550 per month, which is lower than the NT$27,470 for coastal fishers.
Distant-water fishers should be allowed to form unions and negotiate collective bargaining agreements with their employers without risk of retaliation — dismissal or deportation — when they file grievances about their employers with the authorities, it said.
Migrant workers on distant-water fishing vessels should be allowed to freely access Wi-Fi to check whether their families have received their remittances or to file a complaint, it said.
Additionally, the petition called for any recruitment fees resulting from the employment of a distant-water fisher to be paid for by the employer rather than the worker, as it is currently.
This practice is stipulated in the Work in Fishing Convention promulgated by the ILO, which Taiwan has yet to make part of its laws despite the government having signaled a willingness to adopt in 2019, it said.
The union leaders also called for a Ministry of Labor-supervised “tri-party working group” comprising the government, employers and unions, saying it would enable unions to better monitor Taiwan’s distant-water fishers’ recruitment system.
Fisheries Agency officials declined to sign the petition, saying they needed time to review the demands, a source with direct knowledge of the matter said.
The union members said they hoped the agency would issue a response by the end of this month.
The IETO said it hoped the two governments could formally sign the MOU in May or June, the source said.
The Indonesian government has prepared a draft MOU regarding the issue and hopes to discuss it with Taipei, IETO Labor Department analyst Mira Caliandra said, adding that the office would relay the unions’ appeals to Jakarta as a reference for the draft MOU.
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