Report: Forced Labor Is a Huge Problem in StarKist Supply Chain

A leading US tuna brand is facing detailed allegations that its fish is being caught by crews working in conditions advocates say amount to forced labor. A new report on StarKist's Pacific albacore supply chain from Global Labor Justice, based on more than 2 years of interviews with 92 mostly Indonesian migrant fishers on 37 Taiwan-flagged vessels, concludes that "forced labor indicators" were present in every case, with two-thirds meeting the UN's formal definition of forced labor, the Washington Post reports.

Workers described vague last-minute contracts, passports confiscated at sea, crippling recruitment debts, 16- to 22-hour days, months without port calls or internet, and serious injuries going untreated. "If you want to talk about forced labor, there is forced labor," fisher Adrie Nelwan, 53, told the Post. We got about three hours of sleep each night. We worked nonstop. And if there was an accident, they ignored it." Nelwan, who has returned to Indonesia, says he lost the sight in his right eye after a line snapped in 2021 and he got a hook in his eye. He says his requests for medical care were refused and his family has gone into debt paying for surgeries.

The fishers' union in Taiwan is pressing StarKist to negotiate a binding labor-rights agreement. StarKist, owned by South Korea's Dongwon Industries, declined to answer specific questions, instead pointing to a trade group statement saying the industry opposes labor abuses and that detailed complaints should go to authorities. The US bans the import of goods produced by forced labor, the Post notes.

• Another tuna giant, San Diego-based Bumble Bee Seafoods, is facing similar accusations. In a human-trafficking lawsuit filed in San Diego federal court last year, four Indonesian men accused the company of failing to stop the use of forced labor in its supply chain. The company has had "years and years and years to address this, but they haven't," human rights attorney Agnieszka Fryszman told the San Diego Union-Tribune. "There is almost literally no chance that they didn't know that forced labor was pervasive in their supply chain, given the level and volume of reporting over the last 20 years about this exact problem."