Vocal Voices

I was shocked to learn that the fishing industry takes on migrants rather than the indigineous in this country, these migrants following answering adverts in their country of origin can come into this country for three days by which time they are taken aboard a fishing vessel and are out of the jurisdiction of the Border Agency.
EA fisherman are living in slave like conditions, filthy cramped living quarters and on shocking wages.. There was a fire on a trailer in which 2 Philippino's and a Latvian were killed, all living in filth, cold and their needs neglected on disgracefully low salaries well below the minimum wage .. Why aren't these skippers training English, British workers slavery is alive and well.. Often these migrants on these ships are found to be without substantial food...
We talk about France and their stand off's..
These Big English fishing concerns should be banned, and I am not talking about the skippers on our small boats but the big boys who exploit these poor migrant workers to such a shocking degree..

Good morning Kate.

Hope you're feeling better now.

Your comments about the fishing industry are noted, but nothing surprises me nowadays.

They say ignorance is bliss - how true.

The operative word here is "industry" rather than fisherman.

These workers are not on the boats, theyre in the processing factories on land. Aberdeen has hundreds of these people as they are cheap and don't mind the long hard, cold, boring work.

Always worthwhile to work out who is telling you what and why...

This has been raised in Parliament over the years, and again on Thursday..

With the introduction of quotas and "throw back" UK Share fishermen found it hard to make a living so moved away from the boats. In order to fill the gap skippers took on non-EEA crews, mainly Filipino but some Baltic, but on contract. Part of the visa requirement was that the boats they operated on spent most of their time outside UK waters and that these men could not live on shore.

It is pretty much slavery in our terms, but the crews keep coming back. Conditions here are far better than in their home countries.

It was also stated in Hansard that for every fisherman job lost three were also lost in the onshore processing plants. As the share fishermen and their families moved away there was a gap in the job market and this was filled mainly by immigrant labour. Most of these processing workers live in low standard shared accommodation the cost of which is taken out of their (low) wages.

Yes I heard all about this being discussed in Westminster Frank.. I think it is shocking.. Utter Exploitation and abuse of workers.