U.S. canned tuna producer Bumble Bee Foods has asked a court to dismiss a lawsuit alleging that it knowingly benefited from its suppliers’ use of forced labor by Indonesian workers.

Earlier this year, four Indonesian men filed a complaint in federal court in San Diego, California, against Bumble Bee, alleging the company was aware of and profited from labor abuses and forced labor that they and other migrant sea workers endured aboard fishing vessels supplying the iconic U.S. tuna brand.

On June 2, the company submitted a motion to the court to dismiss the case on legal grounds in an effort to end it before it reaches trial. In the motion, the company argued the plaintiffs lack standing for their claims, that they failed to state a proper claim under the law in question, and that the court lacks jurisdiction over certain aspects of the case.

“Plaintiffs allege horrible mistreatment at the hands of vessel captains and crew on distant-water fishing vessels owned by two Chinese companies, operating in international waters, that supplied albacore tuna to Bumble Bee Foods, LLC (Bumble Bee),” the company stated in the motion. “Bumble Bee unequivocally condemns forced labor and takes allegations of forced labor in its supply chain seriously. Indeed, when Bumble Bee learned of the allegations in the Complaint, it promptly instructed its suppliers to cease purchasing from the vessels at issue. Plaintiffs nonetheless seek to hold Bumble Bee—a U.S. company—liable under the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act (TVPRA) and state negligence law for allegations of forced labor committed abroad by third parties somewhere in the supply chain. That limitless theory of liability would allow any manufacturer or retailer to be sued based on conduct by independent foreign actors anywhere in a global supply chain. This and other defects in the Complaint necessitate its dismissal.”

Bumble Bee declined Mongabay’s request for comments due to the pending litigation.

The Indonesians launched their historic lawsuit, believed to be the first of its kind against the seafood industry in the U.S., on March 12 under the Trafficking Victims Protection Act. The law, first passed by the U.S. Congress in 2000, has been expanded over the years to strengthen efforts against human trafficking and forced labor. In 2008, it was updated to allow survivors to sue individuals or corporations that knowingly benefited from forced labor or related abuses.

“Americans need to know the cruelty and exploitation that is behind the tuna they buy and eat,” Angga, one of the four plaintiffs, told Mongabay in an email sent by their lawyers.

Angga alleged in the complaint that he was promised a job in 2020 on the Lu Rong Yuan Yu 268, a Chinese fishing vessel. But after arriving at the fishing grounds, he was moved to another vessel, the Lu Rong Yuan Yu 878, where he worked until returning home. He said he endured harsh conditions and abuse on board, including routine beatings and being stabbed with a needle, while he and other fishers were so underfed they ate bait fish. The ship’s captain denied their repeated requests to go home until a collective work stoppage forced the officers to allow them to leave, according to Angga.

“When I got home, I learned that I hadn’t been paid for the months I worked on the vessel,” he said in the email.

The Lu Rong Yuan Yu 878, where Angga was employed, is believed to be part of the so-called “trusted network” of vessels from which Bumble Bee sources its tuna. Muhammad Sahrudin, another plaintiff, worked on that same vessel, which is owned by Chinese tuna company Rongcheng City Rongyuan Fishery Co., Ltd.

“I was beaten so many times, I cannot recall the exact number,” Sahrudin said in the email from the plaintiffs’ lawyers, adding that he worked at least 12 hours per day, every day of the week, and wasn’t allowed time off to pray or for religious observances.

Sahrudin said in the complaint that he had borrowed money from his hospitalized mother, who’d sold her jewelry to help him, so he could pay a recruitment agency for a job at sea. After months of waiting, he was rushed into signing a contract with harsh terms, including a $20,000 penalty for quitting, and felt pressured to agree since he’d already gone into debt. That same day, he was sent to the fishing vessel, according to Sahrudin.

“There was no break from the violence. I was never paid for my work,” he said in the email.

The two other plaintiffs, Akhmad and Muhammad Syafi’i, worked separately on the Run Da 5 and Lu Rong Yuan Yu 211, respectively. Both vessels are believed to be owned by Chinese tuna company Rongcheng Ocean Fishery Co., which also participates in the trusted network of Bumble Bee and its owner, the Taiwanese tuna giant Fong Chun Formosa (FCF). The complaint said that albacore tuna harvested by these two vessels was processed and packaged into Bumble Bee-branded cans and sold to retailers in the United States.

Aboard the Run Da 5, Akhmad alleged in the complaint that he and other crew members faced repeated abuse from the captain and senior crew, including beatings with a metal hook and blows to the head that sometimes drew blood. The work was grueling and dangerous, with little protection or medical care, he said.

Akhmad alleged he suffered multiple serious injuries, including a deep leg gash that exposed the bone and left him in lasting pain, but was ordered to keep working. Other workers lost fingers from prolonged exposure in freezers, and Akhmad himself had part of his finger sliced off by a rope, yet he was sent back to work without proper treatment, according to his testimony in the complaint.

“It still hurts and probably always will,” he said in the email.

“So many men are out there right now, trapped in the same dangerous situation that I was,” Akhmad said. “They deserve to work free from abuse, to be paid fairly, and to be able to leave their jobs rather than be trapped against their will.”

Syafi’i said in the complaint that he was initially offered work as a cook on the Lu Rong Yuan Yu 211, but was subsequently also assigned fishing work. According to Syafi’i, he was ordered to cook separate meals for the two distinct groups that comprised the crew: better food, like chicken or duck, for the captain and Chinese crew, while the Indonesian fishers were given lower-quality meals.

While on the Lu Rong Yuan Yu 211, Syafi’i alleged that he worked under hazardous conditions without proper protective gear, because it would be deducted from his pay. He suffered severe burns to his lower body when hot oil splashed onto him, he said in the complaint. Despite his screams, the captain ignored him, leaving him untreated and alone, he recounted. Without medical supplies or pain relief on board, Syafi’i was forced to crawl to his bunk and apply Vaseline to the burns himself. Even as his skin blistered and he struggled to move or dress, he was ordered back to work under threat of being charged for food and lodging, according to Syafi’i.

“The pain was unimaginable, and I am surprised I survived,” he said in the email. “By filing this lawsuit, I hope to make things better for other fishers, so no one suffers like I did.”

The Indonesians’ full testimonies described in the legal complaint fit all of the 11 indicators of forced labor identified by the United Nations’ International Labour Organization. In a 2022 report, the ILO estimated that at least 128,000 fishers worldwide are trapped in forced labor. The report said that as fish stocks decline, vessels are pushed to stay at sea longer and travel farther, creating conditions that fuel labor abuse and human trafficking, while forced labor keeps unprofitable operations running at the ocean’s expense. The ILO has also described a strong link between forced labor, illegal fishing and other fisheries crimes as practices that worsen marine ecosystems and fish stocks.

Bumble Bee is one of the top three tuna brands in the United States, holding around 25% of the canned tuna market. Its owner, FCF, is a major Taiwanese tuna trader with operations spanning from fishing vessels to retail brands. For more than a decade, Bumble Bee has sourced nearly all its albacore from FCF, with former executives stating that up to 100% came from the company, the lawsuit said. Chinese fishing firms Rongcheng City Rongyuan and Rongcheng Ocean have also been part of this supply network, relying on FCF for services like transshipment and logistics, according to the legal complaint.

Labor rights and environmental groups have raised these long-standing allegations with Bumble Bee, but said they would receive a denial or no response. In 2022, Greenpeace East Asia published a report linking Bumble Bee to tuna sourced from vessels accused of using forced labor. The report criticized the company for failing to take adequate steps to prevent labor abuse in its supply chain.

Using Bumble Bee’s own “Trace My Catch” tool, Greenpeace found in its 2022 report that the brand was still selling tuna from the Da Wang, a Taiwanese-owned distant-water fishing vessel, even though U.S. authorities had issued a withhold release order on the vessel in 2020, a move that allows officials to prevent products from entering the country until the owner proves there’s no forced labor in their supply chain. The investigation also identified six other vessels linked to forced labor. Bumble Bee says it uses blockchain to trace tuna from the harvesting vessel through the canning process, and provides this information to consumers through its online tracking tool.

Sari Heidenrich, senior human rights adviser at Greenpeace USA, which is listed as additional counsel in the legal complaint, said global seafood supply chains were so complex and opaque that workers trapped in forced labor often had no way to know where their catch ended up or how to seek justice. She added the lack of transparency and disconnect between exploited workers and buyers allowed companies to benefit while keeping consumers in the dark about the abuses behind the products they buy.

“I hope that [with] awareness being raised through a lawsuit like this, more workers will know about this pathway, not just in the fishing industry but in general and that we can really start a movement of workers who are able to seek justice,” Heidenrich told Mongabay in an interview.

Agnieszka Fryszman, partner at the law firm Cohen Milstein and chair of its human rights practice, who represents the Indonesian plaintiffs, said the bipartisan support for the Trafficking Victims Protection Act showed most Americans don’t want to buy products made with forced labor, and it’s important that the law allows workers to seek justice. However, she noted that filing such cases remains difficult, and despite years of reporting on forced labor, few cases have been brought while U.S. businesses continue to profit from hidden and opaque supply chains.

Fryszman and Heidenrich, separately, told Mongabay that Bumble Bee’s motion requesting the court dismiss the case was standard practice in civil lawsuits in the U.S. Fryszman had noted in a previous email to Mongabay that the filed motion papers were challenging the legal, not the factual, basis for the lawsuit. The next step will be for a judge to decide whether to dismiss the case or allow it to proceed.

The fishers’ complaint also described how Bumble Bee successfully lobbied against a rule initially proposed in 2016 by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to implement provisions of a different law, the Illegal, Unreported, and Unregulated Fishing Enforcement Act, that would have addressed forced labor. In January 2025, NOAA withdrew the proposed rule.

Since 2018, Bumble Bee and parent company FCF have worked with Chinese tuna companies to secure environmental certifications from the most prominent seafood eco-certifier, the London-based Marine Stewardship Council (MSC). They’ve also managed and funded two Fishery Improvement Projects (FIPs) aimed at obtaining MSC certification in the South Pacific and Indian oceans, involving vessels that caught albacore tuna exclusively for Bumble Bee under its sustainability standards.

MSC declined to comment on the ongoing legal case, but said in a statement emailed to Mongabay that forced labor is unacceptable and remains a serious challenge in the seafood industry. While its eco-label only covers environmental standards, MSC said it supports efforts to address labor issues and is reviewing its requirements. MSC added that many FIPs used its standards to guide their environmental improvement work, but are not necessarily part of the MSC program.

“I think this is where it would be good to have some sort of international court or some sort of jurisdictional provision that the states agree on and implement because so many things, I think, can fall through the cracks,” Fryszman said. “You need some sort of agreement, concerted action by the source country, the manning agency country, the labor country, the vessel flag country. It’s too bad that it hasn’t happened yet.”

Greenpeace reports that much of Taiwan’s distant-water fishing fleet, one of the world’s top five, with an annual value of $2 billion, relies on migrant workers from Indonesia and the Philippines as crew members. In Indonesia, the government has issued a decree aimed at improving protections for Indonesian deckhands working on foreign fishing and commercial vessels. The regulation sets labor standards based on the ILO C188 convention, introduces collective bargaining for migrant workers, and calls for a shared database among government agencies to better track and protect these workers.

The Indonesian government is also working to establish bilateral “sea-based” agreements aimed at protecting the rights of its citizens working on foreign-flagged fishing vessels, as part of efforts to tackle labor abuses and modern slavery. Indonesia and Taiwan have been discussing a long-delayed agreement to protect fishers on distant-water vessels, but there has been little progress and no clear updates, according to Dios Lumban Gaol, coordinator of the maritime department at the Indonesian Migrant Workers Union (SBMI). While the SBMI doesn’t have an official role in the lawsuit against Bumble Bee, Dios said the group is providing support to the Indonesian plaintiffs during the process.

“While it’s important for us to continue pushing the government, upon closer look, we realize that the supply chain plays a key role and must also be held accountable, as it is the part of the system that gains the most profit from this business,” Dios said.

“So far, our movement has not placed enough pressure on market countries,” he added. “With this lawsuit, we hope the legal process in the United States runs smoothly and that markets begin to show a real commitment to improving the supply chain, particularly in respecting labor rights.”

Banner image: A worker carries a yellowfin tuna (Thunnus albacares) on his shoulders at Dong Gang wholesale fish market, Taiwan. Image © Alex Hofford / Greenpeace.

Illegal fishing, worker abuse claims leave a bad taste for Bumble Bee Seafood

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