The ITF will launch a free guide for fishers’ trade unions to the ILO Work in Fishing Convention tomorrow. Available in Arabic, English, French, Indonesian, Spanish and Tamil, the new guide is designed to explain how the convention can help fishers worldwide, and why it is so important that unions help persuade more governments to ratify it.
Jon Whitlow, ITF fisheries section secretary, said: “Commercial fishing is one of the most dangerous and unregulated types of work there is. The ILO Work in Fishing Convention 2007 aims to ensure that fishers worldwide have access to decent working and living conditions.”
He continued: “Convention 188 was a landmark – but it needs to be backed and understood. This guide sets out to explain it from a user’s perspective, and also why it needs support. Although adopted, it needs to be ratified by 10 ILO (International Labour Organization) member states, eight of which must be coastal ones. That target hasn’t been reached yet. We believe that it is essential that more countries ratify, and that fishers’ unions have an important role to play in persuading them to do so.”
He concluded: “This publication is intended to help unions, their members, and anyone else interested in improving the lives and safety of those working in this often dangerous industry gain the deeper understanding of the convention necessary in order to help them lobby more effectively for its ratification.”
Seafarertimes