"Retailers: The FISH Standard for Crew will fail to detect labor abuse", 20 April, 2021

28 organizations released a statement critiquing the latest global fisheries standard and highlighting the failures of social certifications to address labor abuses in supply chains. 

The Seafood Working Group cautions retailers and global buyers of seafood that the Fairness, Integrity, Safety and Health (FISH) Standard for Crew will not serve as a legitimate or effective mechanism for the identification of labor abuse on fishing vessels in seafood supply chains. 

Significant weaknesses in the design, application and monitoring of the FISH Standard mean it will not provide buyers with credible assurances that the fishers who produce their seafood are treated fairly or have safe and decent conditions of work.  As described in the statement in detail, this is due to several shortcomings, particularly: 

• No meaningful role for workers and/or their representatives 
• An ineffective mechanism for identifying labor abuse on fishing vessels (i.e. an audit)
• No commitment to remediate workers
• No chain of custody mechanism
• Selective application of international standards
• Default to national legal frameworks that may be weaker than international standards
• Failure to recognize power imbalance between employers and fishers
• Conflict of interest at multiple levels that undermine rigorous application of the Standard 

The Seafood Working Group recommends brands, retailers and other actors involved in designing social responsibility initiatives abide by the following:

Genuine worker representation: Workers, and their unions or other democratic, representative worker organizations, must be involved in all stages of design, training, implementation and governance of social responsibility projects to improve their wages and working conditions ....