Ratih Pratiwi Anwar Researcher on Center for Asia Pacific - Universitas Gadjah Mada
Recently South Korean fishery industry is one of attractive industries for a great number of Indonesian job seekers, even though most of them had no experience on fishery and inadequate training on skills specific to fishery industry. This industry is well known for its dangerous work, poor working conditions, and inadequate oc- cupational safety and health regimes. During 2011 – 2018 Indonesia society and Indo- nesian migrant fishermen working in South Korean fishery industry were shocked by a numerous reports of poor working conditions and serious industrial accidents on Ko- rean fishing vessels. Based on that background, the author carried out a research on Indonesian migrant fishermen in South Korea and addressed two topics: poor work- ing conditions of Indonesian migrant fishermen working on Korean fisheries industry and the formation of an organization for Indonesian migrant fishermen in South Korea to address those problems. Methods of this research are literature review, in-depth interviews with key informants, and content analysis of communication on the migrant fishermen’s social network sites such as WhatsApp. The findings of research suggest recommendations to improve migrant workers’ competency in Korean language, fish- ing and basic safety, as well as better collaboration between two countries to improve working conditions of Indonesian migrant fishermen in South Korea. The research demonstrates that well-organized migrant fishermen can combat poor working condi- tions in the destination country with the aid of communication technology.
