‘I endured bullying, intimidation, abuse and long, long hours’
For fear of losing the chance of future work, Samuel does not want his real name published or even the country where he travelled from to work on a Scots fishing boat.
He has returned there for now but is still fighting to get paid for his time on the vessel.
The 39-year-old does not want the details of where he worked and what he did published, but said: “It was rather unfortunate for me not to have a good skipper to work with. There are a lot of good skippers out there but it’s unfortunate that the skipper I worked with didn’t value people’s efforts.
“The biggest problems I encountered were bullying, intimidation, abuse and working for far longer than we should.
“I think there’s no room for such actions in the fishing industry. I felt very bad physically and emotionally and that really affected my work. Sometimes I did not feel safe. I had to just put myself into the work and try to not get myself injured.
“The good news is that the issues for migrant crew members can be fixed by the authorities such as the Home Office.
“They need to issue or implement proper documentation for the migrant crews. The skilled worker visa is very good.
“The transit visa is causing problems which ends up by the owners or skippers terminating or breaching crew members’ contracts.
“It is sad because I never had a chance to really experience Scotland due to the nature of the work I was doing.
“The boat didn’t have enough time in the port or harbour. Most of my time on the boat was spent working out on the sea.”