Fishy business. The Social Impact of SST.pdf - Act Now!

Serah from Manam island, married with 4 children living at Nuigo 3 street. Working at SST. Igive my name and they asked me after a week to go and start work. Were you given any writteninformation from the company regarding rules and regulations? Tambu long kaikai buai, drinkalcohol and fingernail should be clean with clean teeth. …I am a team leader in productionsection…I used to look after the other women in my section to do their work and sometimeshelp them. …We have a gown, headgear and gumboots. Some of them are new and some ofthem are for the last stock which has been leftover and are given to the workers when they havereturn they broken clothes or when you want to start work….They deduct 5% from my wages.Do you know why? No, they normally deduct for each fortnight. …Yes we have toilets, there issomeone looking after the toilets, when we use the toilet every day or break time. We have 10minutes break during the working hour and 50 minutes break for the lunch. …The lunch is verysmall, for a two year old child, because when we eat we are still feeling hungry…They providea cup of rice and piece of meat and a piece of kaukau or banana and kaukau. What kind of jobdoes the supervisor? They normally look around for team leader like us and we control thosewomen working so that we give the report and the supervisor is writing report at the end of theday. What do they do when workers are late? They normally ask them to sign a written warningletter. …I know that the Stakis buyer is one of our trade buyers. They bring in tuna only and theother fish are being dumpoed out. When I first worked there I got really worn out but today it’snot new for me. Do you know where the factory wastes are sent? Some of the wastes aretrapped to make stockfeed and others are dumped out of the sea like water left from that wastetrapped. ….Earning K120 fortnightly, and when we work overtime we look to have K131 in afortnight. For us at the night shift casuals are paid 90t an hour and K1.10 for permanentworkers. What expenses do you have? For the school fee I have to manange to pay K50 in everymonth and K10 for the medical in a week when my children is being sick. And roughly I spentK100 every fortnight to buy clothes, store bought food like 25 kg rice, protein, soap, laundrysoap, salt, sugar, oil, flour and sometime garden food but I never buy garden food I only buygreens at the market and the amount is been total up to K100.Ronald, resident of Nuigo 4 th St. Yes, I am working at the South Seas Tuna factory. I earn 150to 170 per fortnight. That’s when I complete my full 13 hours of work. How much do you earnif you don’t? I get roughly about 90 to K120 a fortnight. In used to work in the freezing section.I pack the fish in the freezer. There is a a 9safety0 footwear but its not safe enough. Not evensafety hand gloves or an overcoat. The place is very smelly and stinky. How many tones of fishdo you pack in the freezer for one week? Hundreds of tones used to be sored in the freezer forone week. How often do you export the fish? Once a month. Four hundred tones of fish areexported every month. We export to Taiwan, Japan and America. For lunch at the factory weeat one spoon rice, chicken and some cabbies. I don’t really satisfy myself compared to the hardwork that has been done. The difference between the time when the factory has not beenestablished is that we shared things among ourselves in the community but when the factorywas established there’s no such things like sharing and everybody expects money from eachother in the community.Lynda, 29 years old, married with two school age children. Originally from Kubalia, living inUlarina. Was involved in the strike which was resolved in a promised but non-specified payrise. Is a member of the union. Reports that they were promised a K10 bonus for every twoweeks’ work attendance, although they have not received this. As it is she gets 90t/hour foreight hours a day, without overtime. That’s K7.20/day, or K72 per fortnight. Says her wage isvery low, but that her family makes a living from roughly 1500 hybrid cocoa trees and coconutsand buai. Per fortnight, the cocoa earns them roughly K200-250 (wet beans); coconuts roughlyK50-60; and buai roughly K50-60. That is, the family makes K300-K370 per fortnight oncash crops, while Lynda makes K72 per fortnight. The children’s school fees amount to151