CNN
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Muhammad Syafi’i remembers screaming in pain as hot cooking oil splashed across his stomach and dripped down his legs, his wet clothing sticking to his torched skin as it began to bubble and swell.
Like many poor Indonesian men, he had signed up to work abroad in the fishing industry, where wages are higher than back home. He was hired to work in 2021 as a cook on a ship which supplied fish to Bumble Bee Foods, one of the biggest tuna importers in the United States.
But when he got there, he says he was physically abused and forced to work in dangerous and demanding conditions. And when Syafi’i was seriously burned while working in the kitchen, he claims he was left writhing in pain on a bench and denied food, water and access to medical care.
Syafi’i’s account is detailed in a new landmark lawsuit filed by four Indonesian fishermen against Bumble Bee Foods. It alleges the tuna giant “knowingly benefitted” from forced labor, debt bondage and other forms of abuse in its supply chain.
In a statement provided to CNN, Bumble Bee Seafoods said it became aware of the filing last Wednesday and will not be commenting on pending litigation. The allegations have not been tested in court.
The four plaintiffs worked on three different fishing vessels which supplied tuna to Bumble Bee, according to the legal complaint, which was filed on March 12 in federal court in California. While at sea, the men say they were physically abused and held against their will.
This is the first known case of fishing boat slavery brought against a US seafood company, Agnieszka Fryszman, one of the attorneys for the plaintiffs, told CNN.
“Fishing vessels never really have to go port, so the men are really, really stuck. It makes it very easy to engage in forced labor and trafficking,” Fryszman said.
Human rights abuses in the fishing industry are well documented but accountability is rare. The industry is notoriously opaque because of its reliance on migrant workers, the complicated nature of global supply chains and the fact that the work occurs at sea, where workers are typically excluded from land-based labor laws.
Campaigners have long argued that US companies need to do more to ensure their supply chains are free from abuse.
“These are people who wanted to work to give their families a better life. We, as Americans are eating this tuna. We are eating the seafood that is produced off the backs of these abuses,” said Sari Heidenrich, a senior human rights advisor in the global fisheries unit for Greenpeace, which is also representing the plaintiffs.
Bumble Bee is one of the oldest canned seafood companies in the US and holds the country’s largest market share for canned and pouched tuna, according to the Seafood Stewardship Index. The global tuna fishing industry is estimated to be worth about $40 billion, according to Pew Trusts.
In 2019, the company filed for bankruptcy amid a price-fixing scandal and was acquired by Taiwanese fish conglomerate FCF Co for nearly $1 billion.
The fishermen claim Bumble Bee violated US human trafficking laws by importing seafood that was caught using forced labor.
Like many migrant workers in the industry, the four were hired by recruiting firms which withheld large portions of their salaries as repayment for administrative costs in a practice known as debt bondage, leaving them with little to no pay, the lawsuit says. They were threatened with large fines if they quit.
The vessels would stay at sea for months, with supply ships coming to deliver fuel and retrieve the ship’s catch – a common process in deep-sea fishing known as transshipment – leaving the men isolated and cut off from help. At times the men organized strikes to pressure their captains to let them off the ship, but they were not permitted to leave, they allege.
Fryszman said the lawyers for the plaintiffs were able to link Bumble Bee’s canned tuna to the ships the men worked on through the company’s own “Trace My Catch” tool, which allows consumers to see which vessel their fish was caught by.
After Syafi’i’s accident, he was forced to return to work, despite asking to leave almost every day, according to the complaint. He wore a sarong to work because putting on trousers hurt his burns. His captain beat him regularly, Syafi’i alleged.
Muhammad Sahrudin, one of the other plaintiffs, said the captain of his ship hit and lashed crew members, and stabbed them with needles. He said he was beaten so many times he lost count.
Akhmad, another plaintiff who like many Indonesians uses one name, said he was forced to continue working after a load of fish fell on his leg, gashing it through to the bone and filling his boot with blood.
Angga, who also goes by one name, said the workers were fed so little that they often resorted to eating the fishing bait.
The fishermen’s claims echo the stories of other migrant workers in the seafood industry, experts say.
“Forced labor is not a one off. It’s not a bug,” said Jessica Sparks, assistant professor in the division of agriculture, food and environment at Tufts University. “It’s a feature of the system.”
A 2022 report by the International Labour Organization found about 128,000 workers were trapped in forced labor aboard fishing vessels, a figure that was likely to be a severe undercount, according to the report’s authors.
This case “exemplifies the exact problem that we know is endemic in the fishing industry, because you have vulnerable people who have been recruited, who have been abused on a fishing vessel that’s flagged to a country that doesn’t really hold any responsibility,” said Natalie Klein, a professor of international law at the University of New South Wales.
Extensive reports on human rights abuses in the fishing industry by NGOs, international media outlets and governments, including the US State Department, have put pressure on seafood companies to take ownership over their supply chains, including the conditions on the ships which catch their fish.
Bumble Bee declares on its website that it is committed to “environmental sustainability and social responsibility” and that the company “addresses the health and safety of workers throughout our supply chain.”
But the lawsuit alleges Bumble Bee was aware of abuses in its supply chain and has not taken crucial steps to prevent human trafficking.
The Seafood Stewardship Index, which measures the sustainability and social practices of the world’s leading seafood companies, gave Bumble Bee a score of 1.27 out of 5, noting that the company “lacks evidence of an approach to addressing any adverse human rights impacts.”
The fishermen are seeking monetary damages for the harm they have suffered, according to the complaint. They are also asking that Bumble Bee implement and enforce several new policies to promote worker safety, such as banning transshipment and the use of recruitment agencies, requiring medical equipment on board and ensuring that ships have WiFi.
In 2020, the US halted imports from a Taiwan-based fishing vessel that reportedly supplied tuna to Bumble Bee because of human rights concerns, the Associated Press reported. A 2022 report by Greenpeace separately linked Bumble Bee tuna to Taiwanese fishing vessels that used forced labor.
Last year, Bumble Bee agreed to remove claims of a “fair and safe supply chain” and “fair and responsible working conditions” from its website, social media and other advertising as part of a settlement with Global Labor Justice-International Labor Rights Forum.
In a 2021 interview with Seafood Source, Leslie Hushka, Bumble Bee’s senior vice president of global corporate and social responsibility, called worker abuses on fishing vessels “an industry-wide challenge.”
“There are some real challenges in this industry just in terms of complexity, but we’ve tried to put in place a number of systems where we can consistently work with our fleets and seek improvements in all of their practices,” Hushka said.
