RD Tuna

RD Tuna is a branch of the Filipino owned RD corporations. RD Tuna owns and operate tuna canneries in Papua New Guinea (PNG) and the Philippines.

Background

RD Companies include interests in fishing, real estate, hospitality, agribusiness, food processing, pawnbroking, and banking. The cannery at Siar Village in the Madang region of northern PNG boasts a production capacity of 200 tons of tuna a day. They are now behind a push to open seven more canneries in the same region. Locals have complained of the industrial pollution killing fish and affecting their health for many years.

RD Tuna sells under 24 brands worldwide. According to cannery opponents, the [Idawad Association] of Kananam landowners, they put their best fish into cans destined for the western market, while locals get served a lower standard in the “Diana” brand.

Controversy

RD Tuna has a string of labour-based conflicts in the region. Filipino fishermen employed to catch suppliers for the canneries went on strike in 2004 claiming substandard wages below the [International Labour Organisation] (ILO) rates without overtime or compensation for accidents or death on the job. They complained that the vessels were not sea worthy and lacked fire and safety equipment. In August 2004 over 200 workers seized 15 of the companies fishing vessels of RD Tuna Ventures in PNG and were subsequently prosecuted with mutiny.

According to the local media, an RD cannery was bombed by "terrorists" killing four workers in the Philippines in April 2008.

The Philippine Daily Inquirer said that police linked the bombing to labour issues at the plant, where “18 workers who had been fired from the canning firm had filed a case against the RD Fishing.” Shortly after this incident the company was banned from selling it's products to the European Union after failing a hygiene inspection at it's plant in General Santos (Phillipines). Opponents of the cannery in Madung say hygeine inspectors shut that plant down in 2008 for similar reasons. The EU is RD's biggest market.

According to local news articles on the website of the Kananam, RD companies have also been involved in a string of minor breaches of the law including holding radio equipment without a licence, operating an illegal water bore, the April 2003 accidental poisoning of locals, fish kills and contamination of the environment through an ammonia spill at Vidar Harbour, while a more extensive spill that was alleged to have been deliberately hosed into Doilon Bay less than a month later with reports of local deaths and illness. Amongst other allegations in the media or emanating from the protesters include an all pervading air pollution, involvement in the bulldozing of crops and burning of houses, police and company officers working together to ignore chemical spills and allegations the company's employment of migrant Filipino labour encourages prostitution and sexual attacks on local women. A company spokesperson reported in Post Courier in June 2003 accused complainants of "making up stories to get free money from the company” after hundreds of people petitioned the government to investigate pollution by RD activities. Locals held a 3000 strong peaceful protest in 2006, but soon after, when government and RD officials failed to meet with them, the PNG Post Courier was reporting that “Kananam landowners in Madang are ready to “take up arms” to revolt against RD Tuna Canners.”

Indeed, in 2004 after a protracted legal struggle, RD Tuna was ordered to compensate Kananam people for their spurious attempt at having them charged with defamation. Despite their lack of success in the courts in this respect, RD have gone on to harass a number members of the Idawad Association, their supporters and their webhosting companies with claims that what the Kananam people say about their operations on their website is defamatory.

In November 2007 RD Tuna's threats of legal action had the website of the local residents trying to publicised the issues around the cannery shut down.

They moved elsewhere, but RD Tuna has suceeded in scaring another two hosting companies to capitulate to their demands in 2008 and in April 2009 Australian webhost Netaxxs refused to cooperate with RD Tuna when they demanded to names of the owners of another site hosted by Axxs.org.

RD Tuna, for their part, has claimed that many of the injustices called by the Kananam people against them are only the work of a handful of discontents seeking to make money from them and that as owners of the land and lagoons on it, they are permitted to do as they will with the land and water. Certainly, they have the approval of the PNG government. The government and RD have colluded to create a new 'Industrial Marine Park' (later changed to Pacific Marine Industrial Zone) that will take away much of the Kananam people's traditional fishing grounds to the benefit of the tuna fisheries. The plant at Madang was closed down by health authorities in 2007 for poor hygeine and RD products were delisted from EU imports pending a clean up of their premises. After five years of legal action against a local protest organisation, the Bismark Ramu Group, they conceded defeat in the light of evidence that three shipments of their product had been rejected by the US as unsanitary and returned to PNG, a fact that if made public through the courts would further risk their now tainted international reputation.

In 2003 an independent report into the social effects of RD Tuna's presence in the region found “serious concerns about the ability of RD to manage its operations on a humane, legal or safe basis. .. We find problems of workplace hygiene, social and sexual abuse of women, improper waste dumping, illicit sales of alcohol and cigarettes, disregard for landowner hiring preference practices, and the payment sub-minimum wages.” Nancy Sullivan's report found that the presence of RD Tuna and their ownership of a great number of the fishing licences for the area meant that the traditional livelihood of the Kananam was undermined. Without land or fishing rights, they were left with no options but to work for the cannery under whatever conditions it chose. "Without land, they must fish. With RD’s presence, they cannot fish as they once did. Without fish, they must labor for RD, which prevents them from working their gardens. Without sufficient pay, they cannot feed their families, or pay school fees or health expenses. They are left in a double bind: no way to sustain themselves, and at constant risk of losing everything." That report recommended closing down RD Tuna's operations. Four years later their own sloppy operations succeeded in doing that for them.

In 2004 Friends of the Earth Australia nominated RD Tuna for the Public Eye on Davos award for environmental and social justice irresponsibility.

Labor Relations

On 27 July 2010, workers at RD Tuna's cannery in Madang, Papua New Guinea went on strike, because the company has not increased wages in line with the revised minimum wage standard. A Government Provincial Labor Officer confirmed that RD Tuna has been paying below minimum wages since 21 January 2010, and ordered the company to make back-payment to the workers. The company's response was to suspend the employment of the 489 striking workers, and illegally confiscated their identity cards.

Contact information

• RD Tuna PNG website

Articles and resources

Related SourceWatch articles

• U.S. Tuna Foundation

External resources

• Website of the campaign opposing RD Tuna in Madang: http://www.rdtunapng.com
• Kaos, K 2009 "SLAPPs small fry to Tuna cronies"

External articles

• Sullivan, N. et al. "Tinpis Maror: A Social Impact Study of Proposed RD Tuna Cannery at the Vidar Wharf, Madang; Gadens Lawyers; Port Moresby," 2003.
• "PNG strike to disrupt tuna canning," Maritime Union of Australia, August 31, 2004.
• "Pacific islands act to save threatened tuna," Reuters, May 21, 2008.
• Aquiles Zonio, "GenSan execs link bombing to labor case," Philippine Daily Inquirer, February 2, 2008.