4 Fishing Vessel Laborers Accuse Bumble Bee Tuna of Benefitting From Forced Labor
Four Indonesian citizens filed suit on March 12 in a California federal court alleging that tuna seller Bumble Bee Foods violated the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act by knowingly benefiting from a venture that engaged in forced labor. The four individuals -- Akhmad, Angga and Muhammad Sahrudin and Muhammad Syafi'i -- said they worked as laborers on longline fishing vessels that Bumble Bee sourced its albacore tuna from and alleged that the company knowingly benefited from their forced labor (Akhmad Sahrudin v. Bumblee Bee Foods, S.D. Cal. # 3:25-00583).
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
If your job depends on informed compliance, you need International Trade Today. Delivered every business day and available any time online, only International Trade Today helps you stay current on the increasingly complex international trade regulatory environment.
In addition to the claim of violation of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, the four men alleged that Bumble Fee failed to use "ordinary care to prevent" the injuries they suffered while working on the fishing vessels.
The four men are "villagers in rural Indonesia" and applied for jobs as commercial fishers. They were placed on longline fishing vessels that serve as part of the "trusted network" of vessels that Bumble Bee uses to source its tuna and "maximize profits," the complaint said.
On the ships, the men "were subjected to physical abuse and violence, deprived of adequate food, and denied medical care (and put back to work) even when seriously injured," the complaint said. The vessel owners used debt bondage to ensnare the workers and utilized "transshipment" to isolate the laborers. Under this scheme, supply ships would restock the vessels and collect their catch at sea.
In the complaint, the four men said Bumble Bee was fully aware of the use of forced labor on the fishing vessels, detailing a series of reports made by Greenpeace USA, Greenpeace East Asia (Taipei Office), Greenpeace Southeast Asia and the Indonesian Migrant Workers Union detailing the workers' abuse and the debt bondage and transshipment schemes. The reports were sent to Bumble Bee officials, who acknowledged their receipt and stated that they were working with Greenpeace on the issue.
Greenpeace USA also delivered a petition with nearly 27,000 signatures to Bumble Bee, calling on the company to "upgrade its human-rights policy for tuna vessels to reflect international standards and to protect fishers from human rights abuses." The company also settled a lawsuit with Global Labor Justice - International Labor Rights Forum, which alleged that the company violated the D.C. Consumers Protection Procedures Act by claiming its tuna was produced with "fair and responsible working conditions."
In addition, CBP issued a withhold release order on fish taken from the Da Wang, a Taiwanese fishing vessel, that supplies tuna to Bumble Bee, in 2020, "citing evidence that the tuna had been harvested using forced labor."