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The men described a frustrating and depressing time that left them feeling trapped. They said they did not know if they would be paid for this time as they continued waiting for a majority of the pay owed for their early season fishing in northern waters.
“When we contact the agency, the agency refers us back to McAdam’s and then when we call McAdam’s to tell our complaint, they refer again or point us back to the agency and so we don’t know what to do, we don’t know whom to contact,” Mendez recalled.
He said he spent a lot of time thinking about his family. Not being able to support them weighed heavily on Mendez. Every week, he said he asked if they are going back out fishing or if he could go home. At least in the Philippines he’d be able to work.
“They said they cannot let us leave because we signed the contract,” Mendez said. “But the contract I signed with them is only for six months. That is why I insist on telling them to let me go.”
For the past 12 years, McAdam’s Fish has worked with the overseas staffing agency Pescadores to hire Filipino crews without any complaints, according to Eric Sternberger, an attorney representing the fishing company. He said it’s expected that the fishermen will dock in Westport for up to a few months between seasons.
“This year’s gap was a little longer than normal,” Sternberger said in an interview with Cascade PBS.
The company expects the workers to serve out their contracts, he said, but if they have a good reason to go home between seasons, then they can.
“It’s an inconvenience and an expense,” he noted, “but one that would be paid for by McAdam’s.”
Sternberger said McAdam’s had started making plans to send Cabrela home, along with another crew member, but Cabrela canceled the request, according to a text message Sternberger shared dated Dec. 16 – four days after Cabrela’s son was born. The other crew member reportedly flew out six days later, nearly a month after Cabrela’s original request was sent.
Sternberger also said Cabrela had an active contract when he asked to go home. The attorney provided a second contract that started on Oct. 26 after the previous contract ended.
Cabrela said he never signed the second contract, which was stamped with approval from the Filipino government nearly two months after the contract’s start date. McAdam’s also provided a similar contract for Mendez, who also said he knew nothing about a second contract.
Sternberger also emphasized newly tightened Homeland Security policies, introduced last year, that prohibited fishermen without visas from leaving their vessels, visiting other boats or using bathrooms at the marina.
Find tools and resources in Cascade PBS’s Check Your Work guide to search workplace safety records and complaints for businesses in your community.
Offshore workers without visas often fall into a “no man’s land,” said Larson Binzer, an attorney and one of the authors of The Price of Paradise, a 2019 Georgetown Law School report that examined the exploitation of Southeast Asian fishermen in the longline fishing industry.
Binzer and other researchers found that contradictory federal policies further muddle oversight of the industry. While the U.S. Department of State outlines potential H-2B eligibility for offshore workers, the Immigration and Nationality Act excludes most foreign fishermen employed on U.S. vessels from eligibility for nonimmigrant visas.
This scenario leaves foreign crews dependent on their captains or the owners of the boat to provide all their basic necessities out of goodwill and not because they’re obligated to, she said, which can quickly become “problematic” and “makes the situation ripe for abuse.”
“There’s no human rights regulations, civil rights regulations, labor regulations that are forcing them to take care of these people because they haven’t crossed into U.S. soil,” Binzer said. “But they have a contract to be working on that boat just outside – literally steps – from U.S. soil on an American fishing boat, fishing in American waters for fish that are going to be sold in the U.S. market – so it’s really this complex scheme.”
Sen. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, pushed in 2017 to improve protections for foreign fishermen after receiving word of 700 fishermen stranded on Hawaiian longline fishing vessels. Hirono introduced the Sustainable Fishing Workforce Protection Act, which would have created a distinct visa category for foreign fishermen and impose new inspection requirements. The bill died in committee – and Binzer said no similar efforts have been made since.