In 2002, the governing body of the International Labour Organization (ILO) at its 283rd session decided to place on the agenda of the 92nd Session of the International Labour Conference (1-17 June 2004) the item concerning “a comprehensive standard (a Convention supplemented by a Recommendation) on labour standards in the fishing sector. Prior to this, the ILO had a tripartite meeting on Safety and Health in the Fishing Sector in 1999. The Working Party on Policy Regarding the Revision of Standards had been established by the Governing Body to examine the need for revision of all conventions and recommendations before 1985 to rejuvenate and strengthen the standard setting system.

After the first discussion in the 92nd session, the 93rd session in 2005 is expected to adopt the revised standard. The new standard (or standards) would revise the existing seven ILO instruments – five conventions concerning minimum age, medical examination, articles of agreement, accommodation and competency certificates and two recommendations concerning vocational training and hours of work of the persons working on fishing vessels. As a comprehensive standard, it will address other issues, such as occupational safety, health and social security. It will also provide protection for people working both in large and small fishing vessels.

Meeting of Stakeholders

Understanding the importance of this new standard, Centre for Education and Communication (CEC) in collaboration with Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES) organised a meeting on Proposed ILO Standards in the Fishing Sector and their Implications at Indian Social Institute in New Delhi on 27-28 May 2004. The aim of the meeting was to equip the trade unions participating in the International Labour Conference (ILC) with the various ramifications of the proposed convention, and thus enable a creative participation in the discussions at the ILC.

The meeting looked at the ILO conventions in the light of the existing conditions in the fishing sector and thereby their relevance and applicability. Participating trade unions included AITUC, BMS, CITU, HMS, INTUC, NFF, WFFP, AIFTU and AIAWU. Representatives of the ILO, Ministry of Labour, Ministry of Agriculture and VV Giri National Labour Institute also participated in the meeting.

ILO’s labour standard specialist Coen Kompeir made a presentation on the Proposed ILO Standards for the Fishing Sector. Stating the objectives of the Fishing Standard, he said that a major concern was to extend protection to majority of fishers. There would be special provisions for vessels engaged in international fishing (e.g. repatriation). Stating some possible contentious issues, he said they would be related to the structure that is whether it should be a convention or a convention followed by recommendation, whether the approach should be top down or bottom up, what should be the balance between mandatory and recommendatory provisions, regarding social security provisions such as death compensation and injury and possible linkage to consolidated maritime labour convention. Chandidas Sinha, Secretary, INTUC chaired this session.

In the second session, there were presentations by P K Patnaik, Joint Secretary (Fisheries), Department of Animal Husbandry, Ministry of Agriculture, Manohar Lal, Director General Labour Welfare, Ministry of Labour and Dr. Uday Kumar Varma, Director, V.V. Giri National Labour Institute. Fr. Tom Kocherry, WFFP responded to these presentations. H Mahadevan, Deputy General Secretary, AITUC chaired the session.

The Fisheries Joint Secretary said considering that working conditions in each fisheries are varied, the crafts used, development and research levels are also varied, whether there can there be unified standards for all countries or even for India is debatable. At what level the activities related to fishing including processing should be included also has to be deliberated, he added. Elaborating on categories of fisherpeople and vessels, he suggested that inland fishing and brackish water and costal water fishing could be clubbed into one category. Exclusive Economic Zone and beyond can probably be another. Similarly, vessels above 24 metres can be included in one category but less than 24 metres will have to be divided into two or more categories: traditional and mechanised.

The Labour Welfare Director General reflected on what has been done by the government for fishworkers in India. He informed that six million fishworkers, besides workers in the processing industry, fall in the unorganised sector. Social security schemes such as payment during lean season and construction of houses have been launched but as far as the Ministry of Labour is concerned, fishworkers are not covered under any welfare fund. The government has been in a dialogue with MPEDA to evolve a programme for the fish processing industry based on the initiative of NFF and CEC though things have yet to take a concrete shape. However, he assured that many schemes of the Ministry of Labour are in the pipeline including medical care for fishworkers.

The V V Giri National Labour Institute Director drew attention to the fact that the ratification levels of the earlier ILO conventions on fisheries have been low. Even when there has been ratification, the implementation has been abysmally poor. He further noted that gender concerns were entirely missing in the proposed convention. Looking at their vulnerability and contribution to the sector, there should be special provisions for women. Another issue that needs to be flagged is the conflict between ecological balance with techno economic efficiency. Fisheries in India i.e. Inland fishing and SEPZ, is a state subject. Hence until states are on board on any such convention, there would be serious implementation problems. He also stressed that to what extent is the convention affecting the competitiveness of the fishing industry has to be calculated and made a part of the deliberations. For the convention to be accepted and implemented by all countries has to be based on broad principles and not specifics. Specifics can be in the form of recommendations.

Fr. Tom Kocherry stressed that a broad international dimension was needed to see what is best for most countries. How the standard would apply to the unorganised sector has to be seen but efforts should be made to understand how best it would apply to the mechanised sector, which is the main concern of the convention. He argued that the ILO proposal benefiting wage earners should get through. India should insist on the convention and not recommendation, he added.

On the second day, there was a round table discussion on the Major Concerns of Workers in the Fishing Sector in India chaired by P K Ganguly of CITU. Initiating the discussion, Harekrishna Debnath of NFF stressed that in the context of globalisation and privati-sation, fish resources have to be protected. Fishworkers, who depend on natural resources, should be given the right to manage them. Ancillary activities attached to fishing are very important and must be considered. Inland fisheries, which constitute more than half of the world’s catch, has many specific problems that have to be tackled (such as setting a need-based minimum wage considering the fact that there is lack of an employer-employee relation in this sector).

Strategy for ILC

The meeting concluded with a strategy session that focussed on identifying major issues and concerns and strategies to be adopted during ILC and after. Issues that were raised during discussions over the course of two days were summed up and an outline of the main issues in the ILO’s proposal and the possible position of the Indian stakeholders participating in the meeting were worked out in this session. Thampan Thomas, president, HMS chaired this session.

The meeting spelled out the major concerns of the workers in the fishing sector in India. Another significance of the meeting was that it brought together on one platform the central trade unions and the unions in the fishing sector, besides other stakeholders.