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

IB: “Oh sure, but somebody’s got to raise the money, and then you gotta collect the fees, and…”N: “Theres a huge psychological divide between the ladies who are loining and even you [toPhilomena], I mean it must be alittlke scary for them to talk to their superiors.”IB: “It has been, but I think they’re starting to realize were human beings…and we’re planningto have a little appreciation function here now that weve started to get to our numbers. We saidif we hit the 100 tonnes for July, and we have every reason to do that, so they’ve done verywell, we’re happy now weve made it..”N: “Are you familiar with RD Tuna?”IB: “I don’t know much about RD.We do have Filippino expats who come to us from RD…we’ve had a lot of experience in business, around the world… Trinidad, South America, andmy boss has been everywhere I haven’t been.”N: “He is?”IB: “Mike McCully is the MD of South Seas Tuna and he’s based in San Diego. And so a lot ofour tuna expertise weve hired our expats from General Santos wjhere there are many many tunafactories. Some have worked for RD in various positions, but we didn’t hire them from RD, wewent direct to General Santos and hired them.“We have, I think, from what you’re saying, we have, we did put in an effort with this plant, Imean 23 million US dollars, which is a lot of money, and I think youll see it as you walkaround, that weve tried, tried to put up a good facility. And that our employees, they’ve neverseen a tuna factory before, they don’t know what to expect …I mean look at the good things aswell as the bad things…I mean, look at the kids who are going to school here, I mean we canproivide a lot of employment for future generations. This is no 2 or 3 year thing, I mean, for theplant to be successful. I’ve heard a lot of the criticism but we still put a lot of people to work.”N: “There’s a hospital in the plant?”IB: “We have a first aid clinic for work related first aid. But we couldn’t take it upon ourselvesto be a first stop clinic for the family. And we have a full-time worker in it.”N: “Is shift work suited to PNGuineans? You are pioneers in a way…”IB: “I think well we’ve seen a change to datem, up to now, so yeah, I think definitely, it’sdefinitely heading in the right direc tion and continuing to do so, and I believe that, at day one,were employing a whole group of people that just haven’t had a job before, so I think in time,they’ll definuitely continue to improve. And we’ve had our teething problems, I mean, whenwe’re not getting the tonnage, they’ve stayed on, worked longer hours, to get it through , and Idon’t know if in the long run that’s a good thing to do because people get tired and then theydon’t come in the next day and it hurts you even more…but they get paid for overtime, yes.”N: “The women in the market would say ‘We make more at the market every day’”IB: “I mean, how many women can work at the market though? I mean I’ve heard that sameargument and I mean if all four hundred of these women went down to the market, none of them93