Good afternoon Assemblywoman Strom-Martin and members of the Joint Committee on Fisheries & Aquaculture. My name is Zeke Grader and I am the Executive Director for the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations (PCFFA), representing working men and women in the west coast commercial fishing fleet.
I particularly want to thank you madam chairwoman and the members of the Joint Committee for again holding this Fisheries Forum, now in its 28th year. This Forum is unique in the Capitol to our fisheries and is unique to the nation. It has been out of these Forum sessions that some of this state’s most important fisheries legislation has come about. In fact, out of these Forums, California has developed some of the leading fisheries legislation in the nation. In an increasingly urbanized state with a population expected to grow to 50 million within the next score of years, this Forum helps to keep a focus on some of our most important natural resources and keep lawmakers in touch with one of this state’s oldest industries. Thank you for keeping it alive.
I appreciate this opportunity to come before you today to discuss the labor - crew issue - on board commercial vessels operated by the individuals we represent and the possible changes that might occur depending on how this state’s Industrial Welfare Commission chooses to apply AB 60, passed last year by the Legislature, to the commercial fishing fleet.
First let me explain a little about the individuals my organization represents, because there is a vast difference between them and larger company or corporately owned vessels employing five, ten or fifty crew members. The individuals represented by our member organizations are primarily owner-operators of small to medium sized fishing vessels, ranging in size from 18 to 65 feet in length. Some of these boats are single operator operations, some carry two persons - often a husband and wife, father and son, or two partners. And, a few of the boats, such as squid, may have as many as five persons in the vessel’s compliment.
The core of PCFFA’s membership are what is known as fishermen’s marketing associations. In California these organizations began forming in the early 1950's following the U.S. Justice Department’s break-up of the fishermen’s union that had represented the types of individuals now in these marketing associations. The Justice Department, at a time of anti-union fervor in the late 1940's, decided that owners of fishing vessels could not be unionized and moved, at the behest of fish buyers, to break-up this fishermen’s union. As it now stands only vessel owner-operators in British Columbia may still be union members; it is prohibited in the U.S. With no way to effectively negotiate fish prices, fishermen eventually came together under the rubric of marketing associations, the same as farmers, that allow them to collectively bargain with fish companies for the price of fish. They are allowed, along with farmers, this small exemption in the nation’s and states anti-trust laws since they are dealing in a perishable product and most are small operators.
Across the nation and throughout much of the world, crew, as well as captains if they are not the vessel owner, are paid on a percentage of the catch. This method of payment, for example, has long been recognized in the federal tax code that considers fishermen aboard vessels with less than 10 persons to be independent contractors. Typically, on a salmon, albacore or crab boat, a crew member is paid 15% of the gross; a novice crew member may start at 10% and a highly skilled crew member may command 20%. As the number of crew increase aboard the vessel, obviously the percentages change.
Because of the risks and rewards of commercial fishing, crew aboard fishing boats have typically been exempt from the minimum wage and overtime rules that are necessary to protect industrial and service sector workers. Most crew members annual income is far greater than those of individuals being paid a minimum wage or minimum wage plus salary, even with overtime. And, unlike most industrial and service sector workers, crew on board fishing vessels share in the profits - if the vessel does well, they do well; if the catch is bad they suffer as does the captain or owner. As you know, most companies and corporations do not share their profits with their workers, and if they do it is a very small amount. And, while industrial and service sector workers may be paid a minimum wage even if the company is not making a profit, they are, as we all know, at risk at any time of being laid off in a company “downsizing,” a company moving its operations overseas, or a company simply deciding to close.
Overtime is also problematic on board fishing vessels. When does the work begin on a boat? The fish don’t typically bite or are caught in a discreet eight hour day, five days a week. And, how is overtime calculated if the crew members are paid a percentage of the receipts received from the sale of the vessel’s catch?
Among the fishing vessel owner-operators belonging to PCFFA’s member associations, there are few “crew” members aboard the vessels. Most of the fishing vessels in the fleet we represent are family operations - what you might call “family fishermen.” To the extent there is more than one person on board a salmon boat, as I noted earlier, it may be a husband-and-wife team or father and son or daughter. In crabbing, the “crew” may be another vessel captain whose has teamed up to use the vessel best suited for fishing crab. Finally, many of these fisheries are highly seasonal, not lending themselves to “regular” employment.
Much of the “employment” aboard fishing boats in the fleet we represent has been seasonal. The salmon fishery, for example, as it still does in Alaska, has provided a great job for high school and college students during the summer months giving them the opportunity to make far more money then would be possible in most shoreside jobs. It has also opened opportunities for minorities to get into fishing that would not otherwise have existed if the fishing operations had been limited solely to family members. From these crew positions, individuals have been able to develop skills in fishing and move on to purchase their own fishing vessels.
It is largely for the reason above, that despite our organization’s union roots, that there is no union involvement in the fleet we represent. It is not because of any anti-union sentiment (indeed, we have worked closely with the fishing unions in southern California and Canada), it is simply there has been no one really to organize. The unions in the fisheries exist where there are vessels with a large number of crew, such as aboard the tuna seiners and in the wetfish (sardine, anchovy, mackerel, squid) fisheries. It should further be pointed out that even union crew members are paid on the basis of the vessel’s catch.
Moreover, as you will note in the attachment on Department license sales there has been a marked decrease in the number of vessels and commercial fishermen licensed in this state. In a number of fisheries, such as salmon, the margins have been so small in recent years that the vessel owners have chosen to fish alone rather than hire a crew member.
The concern we have is that under AB 60 the exemption from the minimum wage and overtime requirement was dropped last year in favor of allowing the Industrial Welfare Commission to decide whether to continue the exemption or develop rules for the fishing fleet to apply either the minimum wage, overtime or both. Certainly, every effort needs to be made to assure the rights of crew members are not abused, including the right to fair compensation for their labor. However, we are doubtful that standards made to apply to industrial and service sector workers will work in the fishing fleet, particularly in the small to medium sized fleet made up of fishing vessel owner- operators. On Friday of last week we brought this issue to the IWC and will be working with their staff and commissioners over the next few months to attempt to get a satisfactory result - one that is fair to both vessel owners and crew.
Our biggest fear from a possible implementation by the IWC of minimum wage and overtime standards in our fishing fleet is not that it will bring an economic disaster. The fact is, as many of our fleet have done already, if it does not make economic sense to hire a crew member - which the imposition of industrial or service sector based minimum wage and overtime rules may do - this fleet will stop hiring crew. Extra people on the boat will either be spouses, other family members, or partners. The loss, thus, would not so much be economic, but social and cultural. The opportunity to go to sea and earn good money in the summer and during vacation breaks for high school and college students will be lost. The opportunity for new members, particularly minorities, to enter the fishery starting as crew members will be lost. Obviously, we must work to prevent abuses of crew where they exist, but in our zeal let’s not get rid of the crew.
Fishing has long been recognized as different from other professions. President John Adams recognized that when he signed into law the nation’s first health care system - the marine hospitals (later to become the U.S. Public Health Service) to provide medical care for fishermen and seamen. Fishermen have always been exempted from workmen’s compensation laws because of the differences in law (including Admiralty law) applying to seamen from land-based laborers. Fishing crews have borne greater risks, but they have also reaped greater benefits from their work, compared to industrial and service sector workers. Finally, many who enter fishing do so not for economic reasons but to be free of a highly industrialized society and its rules. They do it for a love of fishing, a love of boats, a love of adventure, and a desire to be free from regimented daily routines. Let’s not destroy what is precious and unique about the fishing profession by attempting to apply industrial and service sector rules to it.
Thank you for this opportunity to testify. I will be happy to answer any questions.