Running rule

PIoWR helps the Fishers Branch stand up. Then the Branch speaks for itself.

In Fiji, longline fishers are joining the new Fiji Maritime Union (FMU) as a Fishers Branch within the FMU mandate. PIoWR and the FMU are separate organisations, each with its own name and logo. PIoWR is the consultant helping to set up the Branch and, through Mr Banati Sefeti, is to be its General Secretary. The Branch is being established now.

PIoWR

The consultant. Banati Sefeti is the face. Through him, PIoWR is to be General Secretary of the FMU Fishers Branch until the Branch can stand. It runs programmes and awareness continuously. It does not own the FMU or the Branch.

FMU Fishers Branch

Longline fishers join the new Fiji Maritime Union as a Fishers Branch, within the FMU mandate and under FMU rules. Being established. Part of the FMU — not a branch or chapter of PIoWR.

Other countries

PIoWR may help workers organise under their own country’s law. Vanuatu is the planned next harbour. Those unions do not come under PIoWR, and PIoWR has no offices outside Fiji.

Independence

Conservation International — Fiji Programme supports this arrangement and is working with PIoWR in the coming weeks to help establish the Fishers Branch. Supporters, such as CI or the ILO, back the work but never own the workers’ voice. Neither sits inside the PIoWR shield.

The PIoWR mark is the stacked navy shield, five figures holding hands, the letters PIoWR, a gold rule, and the full name. It is never printed as the seal of the FMU or its Fishers Branch.

Care and workplace

Home is the default workplace. A named deputy covers absences while Banati Sefeti looks after family. That is written into the offer, not left as a courtesy.

Labour data only, with consent. No biometric file. No catch file.

Do not say the FMU or its Fishers Branch is a chapter of PIoWR, or that the Branch is PIoWR.

Acronyms

How the rooms are named

PIoWR: Pacific Institute of Workplace Relations — the consultant.
CI: Conservation International — Fiji Programme. Supports the FMU Fishers Branch arrangement.
FMU: Fiji Maritime Union — the new union that longline fishers are joining as a Fishers Branch.
ILO: International Labour Organization.
C188: ILO Work in Fishing Convention, 2007. Solomon Islands has ratified.
FLAG: Fiji’s social-dialogue room for labour at sea.
MEPIR: Ministry of Employment, Productivity and Industrial Relations.
FFIA: Fiji Fishing Industry Association.
FFA: Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Agency.
HMTC: FFA Harmonised Minimum Terms and Conditions.
MSC: Marine Stewardship Council — crew and vessel-condition standards, not a PIoWR programme.
GS: General Secretary. Banati Sefeti holds this chair in transition; through him, PIoWR is to be GS of the FMU Fishers Branch.
SDG: Sustainable Development Goals — decent work is the regional thread.