No end in sight: Filipino fishermen still wait on abandonment case

Usually, Dagalea and Cabrera would attend service at the Filipino-American Community Church, but this Sunday marked their first day off in a while. They have picked up every hour they can to send money back to their families in the Philippines. They say working holds back the homesickness between the video calls and WhatsApp messages. 

The men find themselves in limbo. Again.

It’s been nearly a year since Dagalea, Cabrera, Zambales and 21 of their crewmates docked in Washington after fishing a tuna season for California-based McAdam’s Fish. Cascade PBS previously detailed the crews’ three months in the Westport Marina in late 2023, leading at least six workers to accuse their employer of abandonment and wage theft. 

Foreign fishermen working off the U.S. coast do not require visas, but those without lose many federal worker protections and cannot leave their boats. Labor experts say working offshore for months at a time leaves foreign fishing crews “uniquely unprotected” from employers who have near-complete control over their living conditions and immigration statuses. 

This story is part of Cascade PBS’s WA Workplace Watch, an investigative project covering worker safety and labor in Washington state.

In Congress, efforts to protect migrant fishermen have stalled in recent years. The last public proposal came in 2017 when U.S. Sen. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, introduced the Sustainable Fishing Workforce Protection Act, which would have created a distinct visa category for foreign fishermen and imposed new inspection requirements on their vessels. The bill died in committee, and Hirono’s office did not provide any updates on the effort following multiple Cascade PBS requests for comment. 

Other recent Congressional efforts have proposed adding exemptions to visa restrictions on seafood processing workers to ease industry seasonal hiring demands without addressing offshore fishing crews. Worker advocates argue that foreign maritime workers deserve more U.S. protections, such as oversight of wage agreements and increased inspections of vessel conditions. 

With help from Filipino community organizations, six men have stayed in the Seattle area to pursue claims against their former employer and assist with multiple investigations in the U.S. as well as the Philippines. They have spent months finding new work, meeting with attorneys, settling into new routines and missing their families. 

“Nobody told us we were gonna wait this long,” Dagalea said.

The still ‘United 6’

The six crewmen, calling themselves the United 6, told Cascade PBS that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security recently placed a new investigator on their case – and matched the six with individual attorneys as they enter another round of interviews with the agency. A calendar tracking the group’s meetings hangs in their living room. “Reyner Lawyer Meeting 3 PM” reads one entry in bold red marker.

Jill Mangaliman, a local Filipino-American community organizer who has supported the men throughout their transition, said authorities have also launched an investigation overseas into Pescadores International, a company in the Philippines that recruited the men to work for McAdam’s Fish. Mangaliman said the Department of Migrant Workers, an agency recently established to protect the rights of Filipinos working overseas, had conducted several virtual hearings with the crewmen to review evidence and testimony. 

McAdam’s Fish has disputed any wrongdoing, asserting they paid wages as promised and that crews may see long waits between fishing seasons but workers could return home if they wished. Pescadores International and McAdam’s shared affidavits from other crewmembers suggesting the allegations were part of an effort to obtain U.S. visas. 

Asked for comment or an update on recent proceedings, an attorney for McAdam’s Fish responded via email: “McAdam’s Fish remains available to answer any government inquiries.”

Mangaliman said the crew continues to wait to hear back on any investigative charges or findings. They also credited the International Transport Workers Federation with offering legal counsel and support as the United 6 worked to navigate a bureaucratic process. 

“It’s not an easy process for people to go through,” they added. “We’re hopeful, but I also know that regardless of the result, we’re going to continue moving forward.”

Seeking new protections

Cyrus Donato serves as an inspector with the International Transport Workers’ Federation. In this role, Donato monitors living conditions aboard vessels in Washington ports and works with seafarers to help them better understand their rights and work contracts.

Last week, a group of seafarers from South America hired to tandem-tow a pair of retired state ferries to Ecuador were instead caught in an immigration enforcement action after failing to move the vessels due to a malfunction with the towing equipment. Donato told Cascade PBS that he had spotted safety issues with the crew’s vessel as early as October 2023, and that most of the crews’ visas had expired, leaving them legally restricted to the vessel. 

“How can you have employees confined to a ship?” Donato asked, noting that the crew’s employer repatriated the men after Customs and Border Patrol got involved.

Washington’s local Filipino-American diaspora helped connect Donato with the United 6, and he’s since become a key advocate for the men in their yearlong dispute against their employers. 

Donato said he has worked throughout the year to connect the men with state officials and share their story with policymakers. In March, Donato and Dagalea traveled to Boston to speak at Seafood Expo, describing the fishing crew’s working conditions and alleged abandonment to industry experts and suppliers. 

U.S. officials should do more to prevent and punish maritime worker abuse, Donato argued. He said state or federal authorities should enact a process for verifying crew contracts, inspecting vessels regularly and pursuing criminal charges for severe violations. 

Donato’s suggestions mirror some aspects of Hirono’s 2017 proposal, which called for employers, or associations of employers, to outline clear written agreements with fishermen on the terms of their wages, shares or other compensation they may receive at sea.

The bill would have also established crewmembers’ right to freely report any labor, safety or health abuses without fear of retaliation, and to gain access to remediation and their passports or other immigration documents.

Hirono also included a section that would have recruited third-party entities from Southeast Asian countries to determine whether an employer is acting in accordance with standards set by the International Labour Organization, the United Nations’ body overseeing labor issues.

Recently, Congress has focused on meeting industry demands rather than expanding worker protections. Last December, Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Virginia, and Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, came together to draft the bipartisan Save Our Seafood Act, which looks to exempt seasonal seafood-processing workers from H2-B visa caps that limit hiring. The bill makes no mention of offshore fishing workers.

“The seafood industry is not just important to our economy, but important to who we are as Virginians. We want to make sure we keep you around for a very long time,” Kaine said in a December 2023 news release. “It would be a shame if we got choked up because we couldn’t solve this labor issue.”

Accounting for overseas labor

The Philippines economy relies heavily on wages sent back from overseas labor. Personal remittances brought an all-time high of $36.1 billion to the country in 2022, according to the Central Bank of the Philippines. An estimated two million Filipinos work abroad;  the most common professions include seafarers, housekeepers, manufacturers and nurses.

“It’s really like a culture for Filipinos – like every Filipino family knows at least one migrant worker,” said Andreanna Garcia, a program officer for the Philippines office of the Solidarity Center, an advocacy organization that partners with local labor unions to protect workers’ rights.

Garcia said the country formed the Department of Migrant Workers in 2022 after labor investigation requests started to overburden other agencies. The Philippines Overseas Employment Administration, which helped authorize Pescadores International, is also transitioning under the jurisdiction of the DMW.

The DMW has started with a limited budget, Garcia said, but she remains hopeful.

“I gotta admire the people in the Department of Migrant Workers, they’re very hands-on … and the leadership under their department secretary – he’s from labor, the unions are very close to him,” she said. “They really admire him because they see that he’s really functioning and really, like, stepping up to the role of helping the Department [of] Migrant Workers.”

Garcia noted that legislators already enacted The Seafarers Protection Act in 2015, and are looking to pass the Magna Carta of Filipino Seafarers this year. The latter awaits President Bongbong Marcos’ pen as its author works on transferring jurisdiction of disputes to the ILO.

The Magna Carta proposes that seafarers work no more than eight hours a day, offers annual paid leave and, most important, sets guidelines for repatriation. Foreign employers (such as McAdam’s Fish) would be required to bear all repatriation costs “from the moment the seafarers leave the ship until they reach the repatriation destination.” 

The bill also codifies emergency repatriation from foreign vessels in the case of war, epidemics, abandonment of ships by shipowners and natural disasters: “The POEA shall require manning agencies to effect the repatriation of seafarers within forty-eight (48) hours or suffer the penalty of suspension.”

Chris Williams, a fisheries expert and marine socioeconomic specialist for the ITF, said the Philippines has forged ahead of other countries, but at the same time, “They’re sending so many people abroad every year, they can’t possibly be doing their due diligence in every single instance.”

Williams said one of the most substantial actions a country can take is ratifying the ILO’s Work in Fishing Convention, which neither the United States nor the Philippines has done.

“One of the first countries to ratify the Work in Fishing Convention was Argentina, where all of their main industrial export fisheries are covered by collective bargaining agreements from unions that are affiliated to the ITF,” he said. “And if you read those collective bargaining agreements, I mean – the first time I read one of the Argentinian ones, I was actually crying with laughter because I couldn’t believe how good their conditions of work were.”

Mangaliman, the Seattle community organizer, said the United 6 also raised their allegations with the Philippine Consulate. With help from local and international supporters, they said, the crew hopes investigators will validate their concerns and push the industry to do better. 

“There’s more to it than just the lost wages and the benefits, but also their experience of being abandoned or even trafficked,” Mangaliman said. “We want to make sure that we continue to raise that as well as organize other exploited fishermen.”

Reporter Lizz Giordano contributed to this story.