Provincial Fisheries and Manpower Offices of West Java Province join forces to secure decent work at fishing sector
The ILO’s Ship to Shore Rights South-East Asia Programme supports the effort taken by the Provincial Manpower Office and the Provincial Marine Affairs and Fisheries Office of West Java to create a synergy in joint inspection onboard fishing vessels.
Michiko Miyamoto, Country Director of the ILO in Indonesia, congratulated the efforts taken by the two ministries to promote the mandates of ILO Convention No. 81/1947 on Labour Inspection which has been ratified by Indonesia. “The ILO appreciates the efforts taken to concretely promote the national law and the ILO Convention to develop effective cooperation among the inspection services, relevant governmental and private institutions,” stated Michiko.
This FGD is only a first step that we are going to follow with the formulation of Decree or MoU to legalize the joint inspection on-board fishing vessels that will cover not only technical vessel inspection, but also labour rights and conditions of workers."
Hermansyah, Head of Provincial Marine Affairs and Fisheries of West Java
To pilot the joint inspection, the FDG was followed by a site visit to “Bunga Hati”, a fishing vessel with the size of 131 GT and operated by 15 crews. The pilot joint inspection provided an opportunity for knowledge sharing on inspection practices between these two provincial ministries of West Java. During the site visit, the participants spent the time to interview the crews about the working conditions and lives at sea.
This is an eye-opening experience for us as the labour inspectors in West Java. We have inspected many land-based working sites. However, we never set foot in on-board fishing vessels, let alone to regularly and properly inspect fishing vessels."
Joao De Araujo, Head of the Labour Inspection Division of the Provincial Manpower Office of West Java
“This is an eye-opening experience for us as the labour inspectors in West Java. We have inspected many land-based working sites. However, we never set foot in on-board fishing vessels, let alone to regularly and properly inspect fishing vessels. Thanks to our partner, the local Fisheries Officer, we have a chance to see work conditions of the fishing sector,” said Joao De Araujo, Head of the Labour Inspection Division of the Provincial Manpower Office of West Java.
We are working on different legal basis as we have our own mandates and roles... Thus, it is important for us to have this synergy."
Dede Hermawan, Head of Captured Fishing of the Provincial Marine and Fisheries Office of West Java
On the other hand, based on the Law No. 3/1951 on the Declaration of the Application of Law No. 23/1948 on Labour Inspection in the whole territory of the Republic of Indonesia, the article 2:2 states that labour inspectors have the authorities to enter all places where employment activities occur or all places suspected to have employment activities and, based on article 3:2, labour inspectors also have the authority to collect all information on labour relation and general labour conditions.
The Ship to Shore Rights South-East Asia (SEA) is a multi-country, multi-annual initiative of the European Union (EU) and the United Nations (UN), implemented by the ILO in collaboration with the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and aimed to promote regular and safe labour migration and decent work for all migrant workers in the fishing and seafood processing sectors in South-East Asia.