The ITF can work with companies to establish clear, context-specific labour standards across fisheries supply chains – covering recruitment, wages, working time, accommodation, occupational safety and health, sanitation, freedom of association and protection from forced labour – and to embed them in procurement, contracting and supplier-management systems.
Working with the ITF and our affiliated unions gives companies access to trusted worker-led HREDD, established industrial relations mechanisms and credible processes for addressing human and labour rights risks – strengthening compliance with international standards and HREDD requirements.
Only fishers know what happens aboard the vessels catching your seafood. Effective HREDD in fisheries depends on hearing from them and on their trade unions providing direct insight into conditions on board, recruitment practices, wage systems, safety risks and barriers to worker representation – enabling companies to identify harms that audits and conventional compliance processes do not reach.
The ITF and affiliated fishers' unions can also strengthen responsible recruitment and employment practices, particularly for migrant fishers, aligning recruitment systems with the ILO Recruitment and Placement of Migrant Fishers Guidelines. And at the vessel level, companies can work with the ITF to develop vessel-specific codes of conduct on labour rights, OSH, violence and harassment, non-discrimination, grievance procedures and freedom of association – developed with worker participation, communicated to all crew, and backed by monitoring and enforcement.