SCOTLAND
Appalling conditions for fish farm workers
Fish farming giant Mowi neglect of health and safety led to fatal accident
A Mowi fish farming boat (Picture: Billy McCrorie)
By Charlie Kimber
Monday 19 February 2024
SOCIALIST WORKER
A horrific death and a coming official inquiry has lifted the lid on the appalling conditions facing fish farm workers.
Clive Hendry was crushed between a boat and a barge at salmon giant Mowi’s Ardintoul site in the North West Highlands of Scotland.
He stepped through an open gate on a boat to a ladder on the salmon-feeding barge in a practice known as a “touch and go transfer”.
While on the ladder, he was crushed by the boat, fell into the water, and drowned. Clive, who was 58 years old, had worked at the firm for 12 years.
Incredibly in the five years leading up to Clive’s death in 2020, there were 18 similar incidents, including eight crushing events at Mowi.
A Mowi worker in one of the more remote farms told Socialist Worker, “It’s not easy to speak out and be critical of the firm. The jobs are some of the best-paying work around here.
“But we have to be loud and organise. Clive should not have died, that’s the bottom line, and he died because basic safety measures were ignored.”
The company was fined £800,000 last year after it was found to have breached health and safety laws.
Mowi admitted failing to carry out proper risk assessments and safety training, and because it pled guilty the penalty was cut from £1,200,000.
Mowi is the world’s biggest salmon farmer, with profits last year of £175 million. A Fatal Accident Inquiry is now set for 18 March.
Clive’s widow Catriona Lockhart, said, “I will never get over losing him and I will never stop fighting for justice. He was just praying for the day he could retire.
“It is unbelievable to me that there could have been previous incidents but nothing appears to have been done to stop it happening again.
“There will be another death, I am convinced of that, unless Mowi properly learns lessons.”
Ian Tasker, chief executive of the health and safety pressure group Scottish Hazard, said, “We are very concerned that there appears to be an absence of a legal obligation for previous crushing incidents to be reported to a regulator and investigated independently rather than just recorded in-house.”
The Bfawu trade union is trying to recruit members and win recognition at Mowi. But the firm has not agreed.
Mark McHugh, Bfawu general secretary told Socialist Worker about the year-long campaign at Rosyth where Mowi employs 800 people.
“We have a substantial number of union members now, and we are pushing hard for recognition.
“Two-thirds of the workers are migrants from countries such as Poland, Latvia, Estonia and recently from Nepal.
“We produce leaflets about the union in people’s languages, and have drop-in sessions. This is building a union from the bottom up.
“Our campaign is clear. We want workers here to have the same rights as Mowi’s Norwegian workers.
“Norwegian workers, because of the collective bargaining agreement they have with our sister union in Norway, are paid more, have better overtime rates, much higher shift allowance, better sickness pay and better holiday pay.”
Salmon farming is very big business. When it began in 1971 in Scotland, farms produced 14 tonnes of fish a year.
Today there are over 200 salmon farms dotted around the Scottish coast, together producing around 180,000 tonnes of salmon—75 million fish—every year.
It’s Britain’s biggest food export. There is plenty of evidence of the ecological damage caused by the liquid waste from the farms.
The fight to win justice for Clive can be part of the battle to win workers’ and union rights at Mowi.
A horrific death and a coming official inquiry has lifted the lid on the appalling conditions facing fish farm workers.
Clive Hendry was crushed between a boat and a barge at salmon giant Mowi’s Ardintoul site in the North West Highlands of Scotland.
He stepped through an open gate on a boat to a ladder on the salmon-feeding barge in a practice known as a “touch and go transfer”.
While on the ladder, he was crushed by the boat, fell into the water, and drowned. Clive, who was 58 years old, had worked at the firm for 12 years.
Incredibly in the five years leading up to Clive’s death in 2020, there were 18 similar incidents, including eight crushing events at Mowi.
A Mowi worker in one of the more remote farms told Socialist Worker, “It’s not easy to speak out and be critical of the firm. The jobs are some of the best-paying work around here.
“But we have to be loud and organise. Clive should not have died, that’s the bottom line, and he died because basic safety measures were ignored.”
The company was fined £800,000 last year after it was found to have breached health and safety laws.
Mowi admitted failing to carry out proper risk assessments and safety training, and because it pled guilty the penalty was cut from £1,200,000.
Mowi is the world’s biggest salmon farmer, with profits last year of £175 million. A Fatal Accident Inquiry is now set for 18 March.
Clive’s widow Catriona Lockhart, said, “I will never get over losing him and I will never stop fighting for justice. He was just praying for the day he could retire.
“It is unbelievable to me that there could have been previous incidents but nothing appears to have been done to stop it happening again.
“There will be another death, I am convinced of that, unless Mowi properly learns lessons.”
Ian Tasker, chief executive of the health and safety pressure group Scottish Hazard, said, “We are very concerned that there appears to be an absence of a legal obligation for previous crushing incidents to be reported to a regulator and investigated independently rather than just recorded in-house.”
The Bfawu trade union is trying to recruit members and win recognition at Mowi. But the firm has not agreed.
Mark McHugh, Bfawu general secretary told Socialist Worker about the year-long campaign at Rosyth where Mowi employs 800 people.
“We have a substantial number of union members now, and we are pushing hard for recognition.
“Two-thirds of the workers are migrants from countries such as Poland, Latvia, Estonia and recently from Nepal.
“We produce leaflets about the union in people’s languages, and have drop-in sessions. This is building a union from the bottom up.
“Our campaign is clear. We want workers here to have the same rights as Mowi’s Norwegian workers.
“Norwegian workers, because of the collective bargaining agreement they have with our sister union in Norway, are paid more, have better overtime rates, much higher shift allowance, better sickness pay and better holiday pay.”
Salmon farming is very big business. When it began in 1971 in Scotland, farms produced 14 tonnes of fish a year.
Today there are over 200 salmon farms dotted around the Scottish coast, together producing around 180,000 tonnes of salmon—75 million fish—every year.
It’s Britain’s biggest food export. There is plenty of evidence of the ecological damage caused by the liquid waste from the farms.
The fight to win justice for Clive can be part of the battle to win workers’ and union rights at Mowi.
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