This is DG Cheng Ming-Tsung. He’s the guy running the Universal Service Fund.

I know.

We talked about it last time.

Yes, nice to meet you. Yes, it was this time.

And we mentioned that we were just about to have a breakthrough of the data communication being included, and it seems that we’ve done it.

Wow. Thank you. That’s great. Thank you. Fantastic.

I think we’re waiting for a couple of people. The workers, the most important part of the whole thing.

Of course. Everything is about them.

Nothing about them without them.

Exactly, yes. Thanks for meeting us again.

Sure, sure. How did the meeting with the Premier go?

Oh, so good. So good, really. It went really well.

We collectively presented why mandatory Wi-Fi, not just subsidies, but mandatory, so the bad actors, not just the good people in the sector, but everybody has to do it.

And we explained the reasons, the legal reasons, the five fundamental ILO rights.

And the workers spoke from their heart. In particular, Nofian spoke about how in the past he was 15 months at sea, and in the process, he didn’t speak to the wife. And the agency, something happened where the money stopped coming for 15 months.

Yeah. I remember.

And then the person, yeah, the wife left. And then the kids were sent to different relatives. Very difficult. And so he told his story.We also had a priest that is from Stella Maris talk about the religious position of the Premier, about that as a Catholic. And then he was wonderful. He was wonderful. Really, he was really good. Yeah.

Hello.

Oh, there’s another.

We need more chairs.

But I don’t think that the FA board will go into the issues that follow. They announced yesterday. So, I think it’s bad.

So, please take a seat.

Yes.

This is the industry’s office. The office we were in was the Secretary’s office.

Ah.

Okay. Let’s begin any time.

Yeah.

Just like last time, we’ll be on the record. We’ll make a transcript. We’ll edit it. We’ll publish it.

Yes, thank you so much. So, yeah, we came here today to share a few things with you.

One, what we’ve been working on. Second thing, we have been everywhere in the world trying to move this right for communication at sea.

So, we wanted to talk about why we think making it mandatory makes sense.

We also wanted to show you some of the campaigning we’ve been doing, tell you the good news that we’ve been in meetings, and we think it’s going in the right direction.

Then we wanted the workers to speak about what, for them, like what Wi-Fi would solve.And also then share with you our second briefing, which your office helped us draft. We can send it electronically as well. It’s in draft form.

Did the Director-General have this?

No, I just made one.

Okay.

I think it’s very long.

It’s very long.

Because our lawyers and our researchers are very thorough.

I see. I see.

But we will send it electronically to you.

Okay.

But we obviously talked to your office to learn more about the cost, technologies.

Oh, yeah, the TTC folks.

Yeah, and just kind of really went to work hard.

Yeah, this is very solid work.

Yes, yes.

Really solid work.

It’s been a group effort. Let me just put it that way. So, we wanted to share that also with you today. And so, yes, I mean, I think just very quickly, sorry, please forgive me.

Are you introducing first?

Yes, the introductions first. Yes, sure.

Do you want to, well, I’ll start, I guess, with me. In my culture, it’s not very good. Maybe we start with… We both last, so…

Okay, sure, sure. Hi, Audrey. My name is Mina Chiang. I’m the founder and director of the Humanities Research Consultancy, HRC.

So, we are a social enterprise based in the UK. We have expertise in human trafficking and modern slavery, and we’ve been working with some GLJ and other partners, particularly GLJ since 2019, to facilitate their work in Taiwan, particularly in the fishing industry. Thank you.

I’m Lennon Wong from Serve the People Association. It’s a big organization in Taiwan.

We shelter the migrant workers from the Philippines, Vietnam and Indonesia, and we also do policy advocacy works, and we joined this Wi-Fi campaign since the beginning of this year. We’re very glad to be here.

And we shelter, part of our shelter, the guests we shelter are migrant workers, sorry, migrant fishermen, including the coastal fishing and distant water fishing. Yes. Thanks.

Hello, Minister Tang.

Let’s have these gentlemen introduce themselves.

Thank you for giving us the opportunity to be here today and share our story. My name is Desi Arisonic.

I’m one of the chairpersons of the Slawi, which is under the organization called FOSPI.

The representatives of the organization, especially all the migrants who are in the coastal fishing boats in the Donggang area, would like to have Wi-Fi on the boats.

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to be here.

I’m Father Ari. I’m working in the migrant workers’ concern desk. Also, we are doing the work of Stella Maris here in Taipei. We are also serving the fishers.

We have a constant visit to the ports. Also, we attend to their needs. As a priest, we are also celebrating masses for Catholic fishers, and mostly our pilgrims. Thank you for the patience.

Hi, my name is Jonathan. I’m still a PhD student in National Chiao Tung University.

Also, I’m doing volunteer work with Stella Maris in Kaohsiung, a lot of volunteer work with FOSPI in Donggang, and also the visitors in Shenzhen.

Shenzhen?

Yes, Shenzhen. I’m doing consulting work for GeoGenera.

Doing a lot of new work in Indonesia as well, which is very exciting. Great. I’m Valerie Alzaga, with an “a”, but it’s okay.

Oh, sorry.

No, no, no, whatever. I’m Mexican, so I have a Mexican name.

I am the Deputy Director of Global Labor Justice, which is a global organization, international organization, fighting for labor rights.

We are working in three areas. One area is definitely, let’s say, building worker organizations and helping workers build their own unions and/or worker organizations. That’s the most important part, because no matter what laws we win or something like that, if the workers cannot enforce it and really monitor that, it’s difficult. And also, unions are part of a healthy democracy, right? It counterbalances the corporate power with people power, and that’s important.

The second thing we do is really advance laws and policies that support decent work and just migration, because migration structures really also make the vulnerability of workers quite structural. So those things go together. They’re not separate.

And the third part of this is keeping corporations and brands really accountable. And you know, so we work with governments, but we’re really pushing on them, especially the ones that make the most profit, to really be responsible as well.

Taiwan is not the only one responsible. We all in our country, especially in the U.S., where our organization is based, we’ve been doing a lot of work there and will continue to, let’s say, push the brands to reward if a country is doing the right thing. So that’s our work. That’s what we do.

We wanted just to share a little bit about where we are.

I think we started very much, and I had a digital because I was like, I want to meet Audrey. I better have digital. And, of course, now it’s not working because I have no Wi-Fi, so I will go back to analog. It’s very important. And I’m sorry, do you want to jump?

So if you want a projector, we can actually. There’s a screen.

Oh, my gosh. Yes, but I need the Internet.

Oh, you need the Internet. Wi-Fi is a force.

We’re doing international work. Stella Maris is our Father Ari. He’s part of MENA.

And then this is obviously our friend Yi-hsiang, wonderful, and then Lennon’s organization. And so we have been campaigning from the beginning. We’re the family that is pushing hard.

And, you know, we are right now talking a lot about the value of this industry. It’s, you know, one billion. The value chain goes from, obviously, Indonesia sending workers, workers in agencies, agencies go to another agency, that agency works for vessel owners, the vessel owners sell to another layer of companies, as you know. Okay, so it’s a value chain.

It’s important because FOSPI has been doing a survey. So they surveyed 500 workers, I think in 20 days, last time I read. And, you know, this is at the vessel level what they’ve done, right?

And so we did surveys, we did a petition, which we didn’t bring you a copy of, I don’t think. Do we have a copy of the petition? Yeah, I think we do.

So there are a thousand fishers that signed. It’s very long work every time they dock, right? Here it is.

And we also had a petition that we all were moving. So there are people from Taiwan, and the U.S. and so on. And then the fishers’ petition, which they can talk about. And so we did that, you know, at least when there’s no Wi-Fi.

We did a lot of workshops and things like that, and then we launched, as you know, in February, and in February, we launched in Taiwan.

And then we met with a lot of associations as, you know, we really tried to engage the industry to understand what they think, why it’s difficult, and, you know, all sorts of things came up, right?

The difficulty was things like, what would happen if workers get bad news and how, you know, then they have to send them back? And that’s difficult, they’re in the middle of the ocean. So, you know, understanding their concerns, which were valid and we needed to hear them and they needed to hear us. So that’s been happening.

Then we had a wonderful visit with you. And from there we also started engaging the, you know, the EU.

Then we took the campaign to Boston. And this is where the Seafood Expo of North America is, and I don’t know if you’ve ever been, well, you’ve been to probably expos of tech. It’s like all the technology, but there’s no workers to be seen here. It’s the same thing here, very opulent, a lot of people from all over the world making deals and no workers in sight, as if seafood just appears.

But what we did is that we asked the NGOs from inside to come out and then the trade unions of the U.S., of Massachusetts, because Massachusetts is the seafood center of the U.S., really. They came and we did, you know, a very peaceful but nice discussion outside.

Then we were invited by the American Bureau of International Labor Affairs. They invited FOSPI to speak at the global seafood expo in Barcelona.

And that was great because it was the first time a fisher had ever been invited to speak inside the expo. So it was quite a historic moment and there we had the big trade union federations. This is ITF, the transport one, and IUF, which is all the one that has to do with food, and then the ILO, the International Labor Organization, and then obviously the U.S. government inviting us there.

Then we went to the city of Barcelona, which is a very, was, a very progressive city. They just, their election, you know, but they were very committed to helping us do maybe a fisher’s gathering, you know. Again, understanding that their expo is there but opening out the space for this to be visible.

Then as you know, there is a U.S. trade and Taiwan initiative.

21th Century Trade? We’re part of that too.

Of course, of course you’re part of that too. You are the reason.

On the table, yes. That’s right.

But soon, soon, yeah. So the negotiations here are the chapter on labor, and there are two main things here.

One is the labor rights and one is the migrants within that. And so we, you know, Yi-hsiang and Lennon in particular have been really pushing there the issue of migrant workers and migrant fishers.

We then also had to do our part in the U.S., and so we went to visit the U.S. trade representatives and people in charge of the negotiation to talk about why we needed to make sure that in the language there was a provision to enable fisher’s rights and communication, and see for monitoring and enforcing at the vessel level.

We’ve been pushing hard, and you can see we also talked to the U.S. Deputy Undersecretary for Internal Affairs, Thea, who is a great champion really. She made her speech in Boston about this campaign, which is, you know, again, very amazing.

The U.S. State Department was also, you know, they have a labor side. They were meeting with us.

And then, this is one picture of several, but we went to meet the American Federation of Labor and Congress Industrial Organizations, called the AFL-CIO, which is a federation of all the unions, Teamsters, actors, screenwriters, everybody is part of it. And here, we met with Asian Pacific and American labor leadership, but we also met with the AFL-CIO directly, and they were very supportive and they’re across the White House. Here is the White House and here is the labor and here is the Chamber of Commerce. It’s quite an interesting triangle, but they are very supportive as well.

So we wanted to show you that because we’ve been globally very active.

Last week, we also went to Indonesia to talk to different stakeholders there, agencies, the trade unions involved in this water fishing and so on.

And of course, everything led us to the moment of two days ago where we visited the Premier, and the fishers brought their petition directly to him, and he had everybody involved in the sector there from the government side, so we were very pleased with that. And he was committed to human rights and we talked about how he wanted to really create a triangle between everybody, industry, government and us to really sit down and figure out the guidelines for how Wi-Fi should be used.

And we want to say that we have given the fishers’ agency suggestions of how it could be used to enable labor rights. Not just, okay, I can get a hold my family, which is crucial. But also how do we use it in a way in which, for example, just translation, language justice at hand here. How do workers have intermediaries to communicate? If there is a problem, how do we handle it so there is no retaliation? What are the agreements for that process? So we’ve been speaking to the fisheries agency about that.

We then had a meeting with the industry yesterday and the fishers’ agency, and we’re happy to announce that it was very positive. I think they heard us, we heard them, we understood a lot from each other.

I think people understand the necessity of Wi-Fi, but we still need to figure out how do we make it mandatory. The mandatory part is what we are obviously not in alignment yet with because of politics, because of economics, because of several things.

They very much want to encourage and accelerate, but we think it has to be mandatory.

And so I wanted to maybe have Mina talk a little bit about why mandatory from our point of view, and then also have the workers talk about why mandatory is in favor.

Before you start, I just want to check that the mandatory part refers to free of cost and secure, as in not surveilled or e-commerce. But not to, for example, a very high bandwidth video company, right?

Well…

If you have to make a trade-off, because the current technology, if you want to have real-time video, that’s very expensive.

So you probably cannot have both free and high bandwidth. But if you want both free and high bandwidth, somebody has to pay for it, and that somebody is usually surveillance or persuasive technology companies. So this triangle, at the moment, we can choose two.

But from the petition, I read that you want to mandate free and secure, but high bandwidth may not be part of the equation yet. I just wanted to check this.

Well, maybe we can talk about why. In order for freedom of association to happen, ideally workers can meet with each other and talk to each other.

Exactly.

The network is important. We want it all. [laughter]

But voice calls are okay. Voice calls are okay. Just video is very bandwidth consuming.

Okay. So we can talk about that.

The cheaper options nowadays are around 500 US dollars per month. That’s like the monthly subscription fee for all the people in this room. And that’s doable. That’s really not expensive, because the salary now for fishermen is around 550. That’s minimum salary, so it’s just basically a human worker.And for 2000 US dollars, yes, it’s not cheap or individual, but for industrial size, it is still something kind of affordable. So still, we would love to be able to have that. But yes, it’s not possible.At least having some ways of communication would be better than nothing.

Text and a little bit of voice is better than nothing, of course.

I mean, I think it’s interesting, because when you talk about meeting with family, having children, video is important.

I know.

So those are the things that I think are difficult. It’s not like we want this or that. We want all of it. And the question, you’re right, who pays for it and how do we get there?But I do think that even having access to mandatory communication with digital services is at the very least, we would be happy to win that. Go ahead.

So about the mandatory part, I guess maybe last time we visited, we also mentioned briefly, but Taiwan is committed to ratify C188, Convention No. 188, which is for work at sea, a convention by ILO. For that convention, Article 71 already says that the owners are supposed to provide communication ways for fishermen.But at the moment, most of the vessels, they only have satellite phones, but satellite phones are really quite expensive. And at the same time, most of the satellite phones are in captain’s room, and fishermen, most of them, don’t ever dare to go and ask.

And we did do a lot of surveys with fishermen. Very little of them have actually had experience with satellite phones, and so satellite phones are out of the option. They will not actually help the fishermen.

Of course, the government is also providing encouraging use of CCTV, which is a timely monitoring of fishing vessels. But again, none of them help with communication. It only enables third parties or captains to look at what kind of operation, but not enabling the fishermen to speak out.

So that’s the reason why we need to know about Wi-Fi. It’s something that can only, the only way to fulfill this Article 71 of C188.

And then the other thing is, given that the Fisheries Agency now has lots of subsidies, programs to support vessel owners, and some of them also just voluntarily already installed Wi-Fi, but we understand that those who will support the policies, like usually those who have already performed quite well, they already care about fishermen, they are transparent, they are honest, and they have nothing to hide.

But at the same time, there are also those owners that we know are slightly more, maybe more pragmatic, and still not that much wanting the transparency to come to them.

And these are the vessels that we really want fishermen to have communication.

That’s the reason why we think mandatory is important, to make sure all of them can be under the sunshine, and we all see all of them, and at the same time also to level the playing field, because of course having Wi-Fi is an extra cost, and only for those fishery vessels that are doing the right thing to have Wi-Fi, it’s basically putting the burdens on them by not creating this kind of a level playing field. And that’s the reason why we think it’s better to have them in the tree.

And at the same time, I mean, we are not just pushing this in Taiwan, but we believe that by having a tree Wi-Fi, we can contribute to putting Taiwan out of that list of existing, we are at the moment, Taiwan’s fishery products are on that list. So that can contribute to us to kind of get our reputations and names back by having that kind of a stronger policy.

Also, as you have read, having Wi-Fi, we are asking for that kind of five major goals.

The first goal is it should be for all fishermen, not just for captains, not just for officers, but all fishermen and all fishermen as well.

And secondly, it has to be free for everyone.

And then the third one, their privacy should be protected, their communication should not be seen or monitored by their supporter or anybody who they don’t want to.

And the fourth one is that it has to have a clear regulation, clear policies of how to make use of it. Because at the moment, for example, fisheries agencies are only regulating five minutes per week. So it’s almost equal to nothing. So that kind of policies of how to use it should be transparent and to make sure workers will not be retaliated.

And the fifth one is that the complaint mechanisms, the complaint resolution mechanisms should be discussed and brought up together with all the parties.

This is something that we’ve been discussing with the FAA that covers these issues. It’s on draft. We yesterday agreed to add everything good that Taiwan has done because we want it to be balanced. And we agreed completely that we should put the things that have been done.

For example, we know that any vessel that is now being built or extended is required to have Wi-Fi. So we know that there are administrative changes that are really pushing the industry in the right direction. So we want to make sure that that’s added to that. So that’s a draft just for you to consider.

But we are in the middle of getting that draft agreed with the Fisheries Agency. We will make a public when it’s ready. And when they’re happy, we’re happy. Yeah, great.

Why do we need Wi-Fi? Wi-Fi allows us to contact migrant groups when there is trouble and to call for help. We hope that migrant fisherman who haven’t joined our organization yet can become a member when they are on the sea. Wi-Fi can help to prevent serious cases of worker abuse or overwork. If abuse occurs, we can report it on time so that the situation does not become more severe.

This will enhance supervision of ships and prevent the industry from treating the workers poorly.The fishermen’s families can notify them if they haven’t received the fishermen’s salaries.

Wi-Fi will help prevent discrimination against migrant workers. As of now, often the captain and Taiwanese crew members have access to Wi-Fi while us migrant workers do not.

Wi-Fi will help create a healthy and safe work environment. If fishermen become sick, they can seek medical attention without having to worry about repercussions.

Wi-Fi will improve the mental health of the crew and the safety of the ship. They will be able to communicate with their friends and family and maintain personal connections and relationships.

We have launched an international campaign with our allies.

We have asked the Taiwanese government to make the provision of access to Wi-Fi as a legal requirement for all ships engaged in distant offshore fishing.

We have conducted a Wi-Fi security survey on 500 workers. We have met with government officials and stakeholders in Taiwan and abroad in case Taiwanese companies worry about their profits overseas.

We have collected 1,000 petitions from workers and 1,900 supporters. We are very grateful to them.

We have continued our dialogue with the Fisheries Agency on the issue of Wi-Fi. We thank them for their willingness to participate and contribute to the welfare of workers.

We are also in dialogue with some good employers.

We have asked the US Department of Trade to include migrant fishers’ rights and Wi-Fi in the Taiwan-US trade initiative.

We have also asked all international seafood companies, and retailers who buy tuna, squid, and other products from Taiwan to ensure that all ships have Wi-Fi.

On September 10th, during a meeting with Taiwan Minister of Foreign Affairs, we have asked for Wi-Fi on all ships. We thank the Minister for his time and effort to meet with us to discuss the solution.

We feel seen and supported, and we are deeply moved by his care and support that continues to grow here until today.

The US Department of Trade has provided free and secure Wi-Fi not only to ensure the digital gap, but also to show that all workers have the power. We believe that the international standards of work must be adhered to.

Through Wi-Fi, we will continue to work hard to make sure that we are heard and used in the right way. Thank all the representatives who are here.

Thank you so much for your explanation.

Yes, I am part of the STEM Research Network. We do a lot of SIP visits. We are the ones who listen directly to the needs of the visitors. In my own experience, too, we have encountered so many visitors.

When they come back to work, they find out so many things about their life. Even when it comes to their salaries, at present we have eight of them. They didn’t know that even their family has not received their salary for more than 11 months.

And then they send all their bank accounts. They say, since I left, there is no money coming in or coming out from this account, and I have been working for 11 months, but I haven’t received so much.

Later on, we filed their cases and they were able to get their salaries. But these are only some of the cases that we have encountered. So, in our part, we always believe that Wi-Fi is really important, and we should be able to provide it to those people.

I agree with the points that were shared by the users themselves. These are not new things we have encountered. But our visits are still a part of the solution.

Maybe I can add something. I’m doing a lot of volunteer work for Stella Maris Kaohsiung, and also with FOSPI.

In the past two months, I’ve been in touch with two different fishing vessels. What happened in both vessels is that the crew from one vessel has not received salary for 10 months. So they just arrived in Mauritius. And another vessel with, I think, about 8 or 13 crew members, they haven’t received salaries for 14 months.

So the salary of the crew, sometimes they’re a same-age generation. They are supporting their parents and supporting their children and wives. So if they couldn’t receive money for 14 months, imagine the damage for the families.

The fishing agency says that the satellite phone is available on the fishing vessels. But they wouldn’t dare to touch the satellite phone or even just request the satellite phone to be used.

So we noticed that free Wi-Fi for all crews on fishing vessels is only the solution to solve the salary issues, which extend to other issues too, including forced labor, how they can be in touch with the outside world, how they can get mental support.

And we have been meeting with several fishers who have Wi-Fi on fishing vessels. They just arrived on fishing vessels. I talked with them in Indonesia, and we can see that from their face, they are healthy. They are fine, and they are good. They are better than the fishers who don’t have Wi-Fi.

So we talked with fishers who just arrived on land after 10 months on the ICs. Their faces are different. They are curious about what is happening. They are like, I need to get a SIM card as soon as possible. I need to get this, I need to get that, I need to get this. So they have been missing a lot of things.

We haven’t talked about the fishers who divorced. So many fishers got divorced because they lost contact with their families.

And I’m doing some media analysis from Facebook groups, where these fishers are usually grouped with each other.

So many parents, wives, and children are looking for their husband, their son. And they are asking, does anyone know these vessels? When is it coming to the port? And so on and so on.

I think this is the gap in our knowledge. We don’t understand the plight of these fishers when they are on the ICs for such a long time. We can only bridge this through Wi-Fi connections. That is what I want to say.

I will add something. We mentioned that this is a new team. What’s good about this topic is that we get to review how Taiwan is doing on this topic and its resilience.

I will talk about the fishers’ chain. There are more than 1,000 chains in Taiwan. We are now working with Alphaz. Alphaz is a chain that specializes in working on many green issues, and we are collaborating with them on various issues. There are more than 11,000 chains in Taiwan. They are from Japan, South Korea, the US, Australia, and their numbers are increasing.

This is a critical moment. We are talking about a fishing industry which earns US$3 billion. and needs the assistance of other companies. This industry is facing more and more risks in the industry chain. The European and American markets are paying attention to the issue of forced labor. Taiwan is also on the observation list for forced labor.

Why do we think that digital communication and Wi-Fi can reduce the risk of forced labor? We have talked about this a lot.

China has the largest fishing industry in the world. Taiwan has a chance to create a different example. We have LGBT. We have a reputation for valuing human rights in the Asia-Pacific region. We have a chance to create a new Taiwan through Wi-Fi, and allow the world to see Taiwan.

We are in a difficult environment. In Taiwan, we have good technology and a lot of talent. We have a good chance of getting this done. It will help with the resilience of this industry. That is the vision.

I hope that everyone knows that the achievement of this goal will be a win for the Taiwan government, the fishermen, and the industry. We can all win together. Next, Lennon will talk more about the results of this.

I just came back from Indonesia after Johnson and Rob. I went to a joint meeting of SDSC APM. That is a summit of people’s organization in all ASEAN countries.

Of course, we are not part of ASEAN, but I am the only one from Taiwan to join the meeting. I presented in the workshop to present the fishing condition in Taiwan. That is a panel, so I am one of the speakers.

Actually, everyone is concerned about the fishing condition. Taiwan is one of the biggest receiving countries of migrant fishermen. A lot of people in the world know the condition is not good. False labor and human trafficking is a very common issue. I think all of us, we are all keen to eradicate this reputation.

I think Wi-Fi is a very key thing. From the US side, I think, aside from the description of the TIP report, and also some sanctions, there is NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. They also highlighted nine countries. Taiwan is one of them, who has the bad records of IUU and false labor. They specifically highlighted China and Taiwan as the problem of false labor. This is really very bad for us.

The FAA, the Fisheries Agency, often said that we have to see if there is any common practice in other countries. Maybe it is not compulsory yet, but there are some good practices we can see.

For example, the Falkland Islands, which belongs to England, they don’t make it compulsory, but they strongly recommended fishing vessels in their waters to share Wi-Fi to the fishermen. If the vessels don’t share Wi-Fi to the fishermen, they won’t have some preferable practices. They can’t even get into it. They are almost forced to do it. So, all the vessels that operate in that area will use that.

The FAA also said that satellite phone is also an option. Mina already said that is almost impossible. That is expensive and usually controlled by the captain. Wi-Fi is something the fishermen themselves can use. They can be active to link with others. All of our friends already mentioned that this is a key tool for them to contact their families, loved ones, and also for their organization to unionize.

Fishermen are scattered in different vessels. It’s very difficult to organize them. With Wi-Fi, if Wi-Fi is used, then they can do that. They can have collective bargaining. They can have industrial action, strike. It is a very active and healthy way to bargain for their rights. So, I think this is key.

Of course, fishing is not under your administration. But as a conditional minister, your words in the government are very important and very respected. We hope that you can do something to improve our industry. Thank you very much.

Can I add something? I am also a participant. Maybe something and also a question.

This campaign, in a way, it’s making history. Lots of history.

Yesterday was the first time for my fellow fishermen to have a one-to-one meeting. It was also the first time for fishermen to join the Barcelona Seafood Expo to speak as a panel.

This is very unique in the way we keep bringing fishermen to all the negotiation tables with NGOs to speak on behalf of them.

I would say this is a very cool campaign. There are lots of very unique things and lots of new ways of doing things. I think we can really celebrate those identities of those.

From your administration, your office, of course, you have done lots of very unique, unconventional ways of actions and how to be helpful. It would be really great to support this campaign to become a reality in the wide world.

The question is, because we also met some business owners and one of them actually purchased Starlink from the world.

Does it work?

Yeah.

So it actually, in a roaming mode, works in Taiwan?

No, because you cannot purchase Starlink in Taiwan. So you say only in the universal, high seas.

No, after 12 nautical miles.

The question is, because actually the price, it’s not that expensive for Starlink. So, he was also wondering why Taiwan doesn’t allow users of Starlink on their phones, and to have us ask you that.

So, the Starlink hotspot that they have, is it already shared with the workers on the vessel?

Okay, so they just purchased the device, it just arrived in this car. He hasn’t installed that one on the vessel yet.

Okay, but how did he know that it works on multiple models?

He wants to say that it’s not allowed in Taiwan. That’s what he said.

So he purchased that from a girl. He was getting it from his friend in Samoa. So he was not interested in Taiwan, but the girl wanted it. He saw that on his fishing vessel. He said the monthly fee would be somewhere around 1,500 US dollars.

1,000 to 1,500.

Yes, around 1,000.

Which is very low.

But the data for uploading is unlimited, which would then allow, he said, at least for photos.

Exactly. Anything except for live video should be able.

Yes, yes.

He mentioned that upload speed and download speed is much higher than the other options. But the question is, is it allowed? Is it legal?

And if it’s not, why is it not? That’s the question.

That’s a great question. And also, if it’s allowed, or once it’s allowed, can we provide it as part of universal service? This is for D.G. to answer.

Is there any recommendation that the bidder, if you see a value on Taiwan’s territory, is there any recommendation?

Another question is, because we were talking about if there is enough vessels to want to buy this service, can there be a deal where the service, because it’s wholesale, could be lowered?Because as the Taiwanese government or the Taiwanese vessel industry, surely if they have many of these contracts, hopefully this company would maybe consider a wholesale price. That was a question that I think the industry had.

So, as you can see, this is the coverage of OneWeb. Each white dot is a star. And this is Starlink. Starlink is obviously, at the moment, much denser. One way of, in our jurisdiction, there’s only this amount of satellite, so it will take until the end of the year for them to even cover the south of Taiwan, like Kaohsiung and so on. But for Starlink, as you mentioned, it already covers Kaohsiung and the south part.

From this conversation, my understanding is that there’s no law forbidden in using Starlink.

Just two points. In our previous meeting, I did actually bring up the alternate point, which is not waiting for the vessel owner, but rather for the fishermen in this vessel just purchase a Starlink terminal in the future and for that worker to share.

Because at 1,000 or 1,500, this is very affordable for a pool of workers on a vessel to buy a terminal to share with you. But then whether that qualifies for universal service fund subsidy, that’s another matter altogether. Because we talked about it last time, that it covers indispensable services at affordable cost for nationals.

We need a creative interpretation for all three to extend it to migrant workers working on a vessel that is operating outside of our jurisdiction.

Now, the Starlink question, D.G. will answer. As I understand, we are already testing not just one way in the northern Taiwan or in Taiping Island, but also we’re working with other jurisdictions to test Starlink as part of our emergency resilience plan.

So we’re in contact with not just SES, but also the lower earth orbit, the more affordable ones that I just showed you, the OneWeb and Starlink.

So maybe DG can answer.

Because of coverage issues, Yes, Starlink is technically available, but the low-earth orbit is not open to Taiwan yet.

But SES, the OneWeb, we’re testing it. We talked about it earlier. We expect to have some tests at the end of the year. Like north of 20-degree north.

We hope to have a chance to do a coverage in Taiwan next year. We’re working hard on the coverage part. We have a plan to provide emergency call for proof of concept. At the end of next year, our minister plans to have 700 hotspots in Taiwan for coverage. If possible, we’ll have a chance to do it at the end of next year.

As for Starlink, we are also trying to get it. If possible, we hope to have 700 hotspots in Taiwan, 700 hotspots for the end points.

So I just want to check. The ship owner thought it was illegal, so he was dissatisfied about it, and he bought it outside of Taiwan himself. But it seems that it’s not actually illegal in Taiwan. If more people went to buy it themselves, there would be no problem with that. Is that correct?

Let’s put it this way. We just talked about LEO satellite service. It’s not available in Taiwan yet, that’s for sure. We’re using it as proof of concept; the government is first using it for making emergency calls. It’s not a universal service yet.

Got it.

But in the future, we’ll open it up. The medium-orbit satellite is approved and available for the vessel companies to provide Wi-Fi to their crews. But, it’s as we mentioned earlier, it’s expensive.

Medium-orbit is more expensive. We’ve been testing it for a period of time. Because it’s so new, so we called it a proof of concept before the end of next year we registered. We’re not sure if it can provide a quality service. For companies like OneWeb, we’ll collaborate with the companies to conduct tests to see which spots have poor signal due to geography and whatnot and then work to resolve the issues. We’ll be working with them when we conduct the tests. We hope to resolve the issues by the end of next year.

The services aren’t really needed when the vessels are in port. The fishermen need it more when they’re out in the open sea. So it’s not a huge issue if satellite communication services don’t have as much coverage on land in Taiwan. As long as they know that such services are legal and that they can install, they’re happy with that.

If the ship owners sail out beyond 12 nautical miles and turn Starlink on, is that something that would fall under the jurisdiction of our Telecommunications Management Act, something that is punishable by that?

Once they leave Taiwan’s territorial waters, it’s not a problem. Are you talking about ship owners who are Taiwanese citizens?

Yes.

Have you talked to the Fisheries Agency?

I haven’t talked to them about this.

But the ship owners believed that they’re not able to turn it on if they’re within 12 nautical miles, so they wait until they’re beyond it.

I think the question is what’s permitted. The vessel owner was worried, like, what is the permissible line? The majority of these workers are in the middle of Fiji or Uruguay. Once they hit close to the coast of Taiwan, then surely they have a reception.

So it doesn’t matter anymore?

It doesn’t matter. The point is out in the middle of the ocean, that’s where they would want to have access to this technology and brand because of the affordability but also because of the bundles. It’s unlimited data. It means that there is more capacity for more people to use it, more capacity to transfer photos.

Also, we would love to have video conferences with all the fishers everywhere all at once. But we understand that that’s limited.

But this is the technology that has the most data. So this is why I think the question is fair, because they want to do the right thing. They just don’t have clarity if they would be permitted as the vessel owners from Taiwan.

The FA I already sent to DG already has the Wi-Fi rules that they passed, which you quoted as taking in a weekly five minutes, which I will not comment.

But with the same guideline, they say that the satellite part is outside of their purview. This guideline talks about the Wi-Fi sharing part. For the Wi-Fi part, the only wording in the guideline is that the satellite service they use is compliant with the federal communication laws. That’s it.

As I read it, the FA does not impose extra restrictions on the satellite use on the backhaul. So it falls to the Telecommunication Act competent authority to tell the FA or the vessel owners whether that is legal or not. It just happens that DG is responsible for that interpretation.

So what do you think? [laughter]

We will need to work with FA to understand what they mean by “using satellite services” and “domestic telecommunications law”. Right? Like these words.

Right now, it’s in Kaohsiung and in other providers. In Taiwan, like Inmarsat, Eutelsat, and Iridium, these are the three major technologies that are available for Taiwanese agencies. Neither Chunghwa Telecom nor other private companies are acting as distributors for Starlink services. So vessel owners can’t purchase it in Taiwan; they have do it abroad.

We understand that. As we’ve mentioned earlier, we have some partners who have already tested the satellites abroad. They are also from the Republic of China. So of course, if it’s illegal to use Starlink outside of Taiwan, then all these people would be breaking the law. But if they provide free Wi-Fi, are they providing telecommunication services? Is it a transfer? We need to think about that. We can confirm that with the FA, and they can give a clear explanation.

There is a controversial issue with Taiwanese vessels. Taiwanese vessels in international waters is still considered to be Taiwanese soil.

So it might be illegal. [laughter]

So we are also supporting and advocating for the abolishment of regulations concerning nationality, and that Taiwan’s Labor Standards Act should also apply to migrant fishers as well.

I wonder if some of our embassies use low-earth orbit satellites, too?

You clever man, you clever man.

I think we need to contact the person who worded the regulations. So we need to contact him first, to know the intentions behind the words he wrote. But after we know his intention, I can say at least that we don’t want to expand on the interpretation of those regulations and make things complicated for everyone. We just want to make sure that the legal staff on both sides won’t have different interpretations of the same regulations.

That’s what ship owners are afraid of, to have the two sides say different things. One says you can turn it on, and other says to shut it down.

As long as the ship owners are okay with it, they might just go directly to Starlink themselves. It’s more convenient. What they’re worried about is being on the wrong side of the law.

It’s as I said last time. So that’s why it’s important to ask if anyone, whether it’s the ship owners or the fishermen, is already using it. Once there is an established fact, it would be easier for both government agencies to have a discussion.

Once there is clarity, and once the owners can actually purchase it, it would be great if there was also an effort by the industry and the government to try to get wholesale, to try to figure out if they can make it more affordable.

We really think that it’s very hard to put the burden on the workers to have the satellite, I think. Maybe not. Because either way, we are trying to get an agreement on the vessel, that they can use it when it’s safe. Health and safety first. How they use it to solve issues and problems is agreed.

It’s step by step, and there is no retaliation, and everybody knows the rules, and everybody is trained. I mean, even if the workers could even be trained to help with IUU and illegal fishing. The workers can be so much part of a solution once they have rights, once they’re organized, once there is agreement.

For us, that’s part of the discussion. It’s like, you know, there are apps that people want to use. There are all sorts of, you know, we talked about mental health a lot, I think the last time we visited you, about the access to healthcare online.

If you are out 10 months or 15 months out at sea, you don’t have access to healthcare. Period. There is not a nurse, there is not a doctor, and you cannot even speak out. So when we talked to the agencies in Indonesia, agencies that hire them said, “We would also really like to have Wi-Fi. Because if a worker has a health issue, or a mental health problem, then we can intervene.” This is the industry segment.

The same thing goes for Stella Maris and FOSPI. The idea that some fishers become extremely depressed, for us, is something that is also important, the mental health aspect of the isolation, and not receiving news, and when you do receive it, it’s horribly bad because you haven’t talked to them forever. And of course, maybe they didn’t get paid, maybe they moved on, so it adds to that stress. So the part of the discussion about the mental health aspect of this, for us, is very important.

And you have talked about the idea that not only should they have digital rights, but also the right to access mental health care, digitally or virtually. That is also something that we would like for hopefully your department, your ministry, to think about that extension of rights, and then we want to ask you, what else can you help us think about?

Because you talked about subsidies. you talked about the inclusion of fishers in these communities that are, I don’t know how to say it, disconnected or vulnerable to that isolation, or do not have access to the digital rights.

So I think our question too is, what do you think now? Do you consider it? Are you thinking about it?

Fishers are a group that is in the news. I think that Netflix, number one thing right now. In Taiwan, it’s about fishers as well. So this is something that we all want to fix. I think the industry is committed. I think the Premier is committed. We are committed.

So the question is how to keep increasing the capacity and the resources until we can go to the brands to make sure that also the brands pay, and that’s our job internationally: to move up and say, this is not just a Taiwanese government problem, this is you benefiting from this, and you need to also contribute to this cause.

But it’s a process. And in the meantime, every day, there is the danger of not knowing what we don’t know, and that’s the question of the mandatory. We don’t know what we don’t know until we have transparency.

Yes. No, the reason why I mentioned last meeting about a worker-owned satellite low-earth orbit terminal is not because I think the vessel owner or government should shift away from the subsidy. That’s not what I mean. What I mean was because you asked specifically about privacy of communication.

Yes.

And when the Wi-Fi hotspot is controlled by the vessel owner—rate limiting; switching it off; you connect to this website, you get good bandwidth; connect to that website, you get bad bandwidth—all these may not be in the vessel owner’s best interest, but they actually have the means to do that when they control the Wi-Fi hotspot.

It’s just like using Internet in a cafe. The cafe owner may not have the best interest to show you a lot of advertisement or whatever, pop-up ads and so on. But some cafe owners do that anyway, and I don’t attend those cafes anymore.

So technically, there is no way to prevent someone who shares Wi-Fi with you from meddling with your Internet quality. But if you own the terminal, then you can ensure private communication all the way, and you control how much bandwidth to use.

How would that work then? Because that sounds great. What would that look like technically? I think she has already talked about this.

The reason why we don’t mention it that much in the draft of the briefing is that the majority of the fishermen, based on what I understand, they have quite basic technology literacy.

So for example, we tried to do a survey of the 500 fishermen. We did it on a Google survey sheet. It’s not possible to just send them a sheet and imagine them to be able to fill it out by themselves. Actually, it has to come to them face to face, and we would have to direct them on every single piece of information, because it would be extremely hard. And we also understand previously, from some of the social workers sharing research, even by using Wi-Fi, you need to call hotlines. many of them may struggle with that process, just by, oh, you need to hit one or two in English or what not. Those things pop up, and it would be really confusing for the worker.

That’s the reason why, if it’s possible, for NGOs to help them install that kind of technology before they go out on the high sea, Then maybe there’s a chance. But otherwise, to imagine fishermen to be able to handle that process, it can take some time to achieve. That’s the reason why we still also think it’s better for them.

I agree that it’s a learning process, but we’re asking for the capacity for workers to organize at vessel level, and we’re talking about implementing,

In this thing, we’re saying Wi-Fi worker groups that are in charge of implementing their side, rules and responsibilities of how to add Wi-Fi. Ideally, one of them, two of them, could be trained how to actually hold their own piece. It doesn’t mean that they wouldn’t be retaliated against, by the way, because if you’re going to turn it off for bad reasons, you’re going to do everything to figure to intervene.

But I would love to explore what this means in the long term. Because it’s not one or the other. The question is, can we do it? So there is some regulation in which, okay, employers are required, but also the workers themselves could have their own pathway to controlling their own data, because that’s the other question, right?

Then to me, it’s not one or the other, but this we should think through, because FOSPI would be the one that could maybe be the owner or something like that. So, the question to me is, it’s not enough.

Even when they are using their own phone calls, it should still be paid by the…

Yes. So, I mean, we can talk about the subsidy/universal service equation in a separate conversation, because these are orthogonal, right?

So what I was talking about was controlling the terminal should go to the workers meaningfully in an ideal world. From my point of view, the vessel owner operating the hotspot is an acceptable intermediate solution. But because if they have access to OneWeb or Starlink terminals, then they may be willing to pay just so that they can watch Netflix or whatever, right? So, the intermediate step is a good first step. I’m not saying that we bypass this step. Okay, first point.

Second point, I think currently the terminals are smaller and smaller, and so you mentioned it’s difficult for a phisher to install and to operate. But for many, this is already so small that it is just a laptop size or even smaller, like a small tablet. And so just like a Wi-Fi hotspot that you purchase when you go to some airport abroad, right? You’ll have this small tablet thing that just shares Wi-Fi and nothing more. So, this form factor, I don’t think it’s harder to use than a phone. So, that’s my second point.

And third point is that in the next few years, it will be part of the phone. So, iPhone 14 already has the way to connect to satellites. Android 14 soon will have that capability. Within a couple of years, if you don’t insist on very high bandwidth video, and just use it for phone calls and pictures, the newer phones will already have that.

Wow.

And once that happens, you don’t have to learn anything new anymore.

Yes, you just go YouTube or satellite phone.

Exactly. And then, just one of the crew buys an expensive new phone and shares it with others, like I shared it with you. And that’s it, and that is maybe three years down the line. So, we must not lose momentum. But we must also be clear about the direction. That is my point.

I like that a lot. Because it does cover our worry about freedom of association. It also depends on the will of good or disreputable vessel owners and management.

Yeah. “If you blow the whisle, I’ll switch you off.”

And the whistleblower right now, I think it does become a very important part of the IUU side. I mean the fact that today, there was something on Taiwan being equated with China. I mean that’s the title of the news right now. It’s like this all could help. I’m just saying that it’s also important to have whistleblowing capacity, and you don’t need to be very vocal.

But at the same time there are different ways in which you can communicate to the outside. I like that. It’s like this can even be like this and that. So there is no way that people cannot be connected, and those are the things I also think the government needs to understand that when workers have organization power to help the industry, that’s important.

And also we’re talking about sustainability problems. I mean right now, because of climate change, because of IUU illegal fishing, all those things are becoming a trend. I mean I don’t think that’s not going to continue to move in that direction.

And I think Yi-hsiang was right. It’s like if Taiwan can be at the cutting edge of that, then that market becomes the market that brands will have to think about extending and sourcing from rather than spaces where we hold at release orders or things like that, where we cannot really be transparent.

We as campaigners will try to make sure that this is something that gets rewarded. But we need to be able to say this is the differentiation. So this is great.

Any final…?

Yesterday I suddenly remembered that when we had a meeting with this association, the Fishermen Association. So, the whole association of employers yesterday was meeting with us together with the Fisheries Agency for the first time. So for long-liners, there are two associations. One is based in Donggang, and one is based in Kaohsiung. We have been asking them the same question: Can you provide Wi-Fi for the fishers?

And they clearly said it’s not the question of the cost, it’s the question of the use, how the fishers are going to use it. And then yesterday they said again, “If we want to give the fishers Wi-Fi access, we need to educate them on how to use the Wi-Fi.”

So, there are some huge fears from the employer side that letting these fishers communicate with the outside world might destroy their operation, their existing system that is captive and exploitative.

I think that’s the thing that we need to counter, too. How we need to educate the employer that letting them communicate will not destroy you overnight. If you are doing bad things, it might destroy you. But if you are doing the right thing, it just makes you better.

Yes, fishers are setting good examples. It’s so important. And I see already that they have subsidies for the good examples.But we need to extend the affordability and reach so that even the not currently participating vessel owners find no excuse for not participating. I think that is the intermediate strategic goal that we are all after.

I also want to share a little bit about the completion rate now. So as Jonathan mentioned, there are several different associations.

There is one called the Speed and Sour Association, and you have the Jojo Association. All their vessels have Wi-Fi. But they also make it clear that because of the captains that need to use Wi-Fi facility, they don’t necessarily share their Wi-Fi. So that’s a really easy step by just asking them to share.

Also, the Tuna and Longline Association in Donggang. They have around 500 fishing vessels. Out of the 500, around 100 is not being operated, and another 100 has Wi-Fi now. So, it’s basically one quarter of the operation vessels actually has Wi-Fi. Again, the question is if they are actually sharing that with fishermen.

So, for the last time, of course we understand the personal use of Wi-Fi which is really valuable. But for us, it would be really wonderful if your department can also strategize and support.

I think that’s one thing we can definitely do. We can make use of domestic telecommunications regulations, which gives us the right to express our opinion.

So, we don’t necessarily need to communicate with them. We can contact them first. Let them know that we have seen you. You have mentioned the use of 12 nautical miles. We also want to know what they were thinking they expressed their own opinion. Then we can reach an internal consensus. This is definitely the first step.

After reaching the first step, how do we tell the public? Or we can tell the fishery department that our opinion is this, and they can take it and tell that to the public. Once we have those two, then it’ll be easy afterwards.

It should be okay. The advantage of this path is that that particular service can be separated from the main universal service within Taiwan.

Because Bruce Cheng told me before that the universal service is extended outside of Taiwan and provided to non-Taiwanese people.

It’s not that easy at this stage. Although we worked hard to include data services and other things, but this must be limited to the domestic Taiwanese users. Can it be expanded in the future? It is possible to have a discussion on it.

It should be possible to discuss it. I want to emphasize that.

But the use of Starlink and OneWeb outside of Taiwan cannot be serviced by the universal service fund at this moment, because OneWeb and Starlink aren’t even Taiwanese telecommunication providers in the first place. So now there is this gap, and it’s faster to close in on this gap from this side, because there’s implementation of funding here.

In the future, when OneWeb or Starlink can be used in Taiwan, we will make the connection, instead of just waiting. If we wait, the momentum will disappear.

Okay, thank you, Audrey.

That’s great. Very powerful. Politically, we are thinking about who else we should talk to that could help with the expectations, flexibility, funding, anything else. Any suggestions?

Maybe local governments, municipal governments. Sometimes when the central government does something, but with a limited budget, like rewarding childbirth, the municipal governments are the ones that are actually doubling down on the subsidy, because they also want to make a difference compared to other municipal governments. That is an obvious road route.

Also, usually municipal and local city governments have more say over the day-to-day operation of the industry players there.

The central government must make rules that apply to the entire country. We cannot be playing favorites. If we do a policy that benefits only a handful of operators within a specific municipality, then we will be criticized as over-favoring a municipality. For a municipal government to do that, what is their job? This is the difference between the central and municipal government.

That’s very helpful. Thank you.

Finally, just to share a little bit about the future plan. The campaign will continue. For the next few months, the plan is to go to Europe, but soon to Japan.In Europe, there will be meetings between FNPCO, the UN bodies for the agriculture organization. We will have some meetings there.In Japan, there will be a conference meeting about un-equal fishing. We will go and regulate the un-equal fishing. We will also be there to engage them.We need to understand how also worker organizations can understand more and think, because also workers are part of this sustainability, just transition future, right? Make sure these jobs stay and are good.

Most likely, the boundary will come back in November. We may have a bit more engagement time at the end. We have also mentioned to the Fisheries Agency that we would love to have another three-party meeting or conference. We will say three-party, meaning government, industry, and workers. Andrew was discussing supporting the workers to have the dialogue to have a deeper conversation.

It would be great if you could come. Or at least come to talk to the industry about some of these options.

Keynote speaker, maybe?

Digital rights.

Yes.

Well, with the FA’s blessing, of course.

I think we need to get the interagency clarity figured out first. Then we will also talk to the FAA about their preferred way for our statements to be relayed by them, or we make our own statements or we do some consultation. We don’t know, right? So we will need to talk.

Yeah, that would be great. Right now, I think it’s really facilitating us talking to the industry and understanding the industry needs and understanding the workers’ needs, the agreements that go with the real… how does it look like at the vessel level.

This is why I love this conversation because we need to make it not up here, we really need to make it so the workers themselves with captains really set a new tone for relationships. This communication is allowing for all that.

I mean, Wi-Fi is helping us have more participation in democracy. Also, that the industry sees it as an added value rather than as a threat to get them to normalize this, I think, again, it’s helpful because I think brands and consumers want to do the right thing, and we can campaign to make sure they do the right thing, but it is kind of like where we’re going.So thank you for connecting this very important dot, which is the technology side.

Next time when you come, I have three offices. So the third one is very close to Kaohsiung. It’s in Shalun. Just outside of the high-speed rail station. So if you visit Kaohsiung and happen to be around, [laughter] the food is much better. [laughter]

I’m sure we can make that happen. Most of the time we are with the workers. We have many, I mean, we met with two of the… basically, FOSPI has 12 different subgroups that are based on regions, and we met with two of them, folks that had just come back from seas.

It was really good to talk to them. And they were all like, “Wi-Fi, yes!” It was very beautiful, really, and they were very happy that this campaign is happening. So I just want to say to you that… um…

Because of typhoon, a lot of vessels come here.

Yes, so they are far to have…

We just met with the vessels who just arrived from the high seas after 10 months.

Yes.

11 months.

And they didn’t have Wi-Fi.

We talked about this Wi-Fi, a lot of excitement. Because last year we talked about Wi-Fi. They were saying impossible, impossible, impossible. And now they say, okay, let’s have it as soon as possible. They are changing process.

Okay, that’s great. The typhoon is… one of the silver linings of a typhoon is that it brings people together.

Yes, yes. We were able to meet 50 people in one night, in two groups, two different groups. 50 people, 50 people. Yeah.

Okay, well, enjoy your stay and see you next time. Thank you.

Can we have a photo here?

Yes, of course.