Kaohsiung City, Taiwan. (September 6, 2021)- At the end of August 2021, FCF Co., Ltd. (FCF) hosted four (4) workshops with vessel owners from various fisheries including tuna longline fisheries, tuna purse seine fisheries, and squid & Pacific saury fisheries. This series of workshops is part of FCF’s Social Responsibility Program aimed at enhancing overall capacity among fishing industry partners. Two key themes delivered by FCF during the workshops were 1) providing practical solutions for common areas of improvement from social audit results and 2) providing a venue for various attending stakeholders to clarify their questions on the recently implemented Workers’ Voice platform that allows coordination between FCF and PCT Seamen’s/Fishermen’s Service Center to address crewmen’s concerns in near real-time while at sea.
A variety of valued parties and experts were in attendance to deliver presentations including the Taiwan Fisheries Agency (TFA). The TFA representative shared the latest policy and action plan. Also a Bureau Veritas Certification (Taiwan) representative attended to explain its independent audit role in social audits. This was aided by the vessel owner who was able to share his experience with the social audit format.
FCF staff not only presented ‘social audits’ as an important tool for vessel management and control, but also emphasized the remediation aspects that vessel owners should focus on to improve social practices including health & safety practices, grievance mechanism, recruiting process management, and contract verifications.
Despite ongoing Covid-19 restrictions, attendance was particularly strong with over 70 Taiwan-based fishery companies participating across four workshops. The participants showed their keen interest to learn from experiences shared by TFA, BV, PCTSFSC, experts, and also FCF Social Team as social responsibility has gained increasing attention by many authorities, international organizations, key buyers and the end markets.
To know more about Social Responsibility Programs, please reach Social Team in FCF.
Social@fcf.com.tw
