A total of 15 Newfoundland and Labrador harvesters under the age of 35 have stepped up to the plate to form the inaugural FFAW-Unifor Young Harvesters Committee.
“We had our first committee meeting on Dec. 17,” with more planned, said Courtney Glode, FFAW Director of Public Affairs.
The FFAW Young Harvesters Committee was established as the result of a resolution passed at the 2024 FFAW Constitutional Convention.
The Committee is dedicated to empowering young harvesters within the fishing industry in Newfoundland and Labrador and serving as a platform for young inshore union members to engage in discussions, share insights and advocate for improvements that address the unique challenges and opportunities faced by the next generation of harvesters.
“There’s going to be a big demographic turnover, there already is and it’s going to get more intense in the next 10 years when a lot of those older individuals retire out of the industry, so providing a space for young people to bring their concerns forward, discuss issues that matter to them. It can be intimidating for young people to bring issues up at regional union meetings or in front of council, so a space where they can bring issues up with their own peers, to build confidence and build skills to be prepared to sit at those tables in the next few years,” said Glode.
Rounding out the committee for a total of 19 are the four young harvesters who were already serving as representatives on the FFAW inshore council and women’s committees. The Professional Fish Harvesters Certification Board and the N.L. Fish Harvesting Safety Association are also part of the committee.
Glode said originally the intention was to run elections if there had been a large amount of interest. “We needed a committee that is a workable size but we ended up not running any elections. Some areas only had three or four applications. After discussing it with the leadership, we decided to just include everybody in the spirit of not excluding anybody. In the future, if there is a huge amount of interest then we’ll look at running elections.”
While the committee only has one representative from Labrador, all the seats are filled representing all NATO areas, said Glode, noting there are three women on the committee.
“A lot more women are getting involved in the family industry, are enterprise owners themselves, sitting around the tables, taking leadership positions. It’s really great to see,” said Glode.
There were some priority issues discussed at the committee’s first meeting, said Glode. “Things like being able to obtain licences. That’s a really big one. The way licenses are issued and how difficult it can be for young people to access licenses if they are not already a part of a family enterprise and difficulties around policies in general. Policies around professionalization. The certification board will play a big role in this committee when it comes to the professionalization issue. A lot of people have brought forward ideas in recent years to modernize the process (for the) current generation of fish harvesters so we will see if we can adjust the policy to help young people without hurting the integrity of the industry and professionalization that we have developed so far.”
The re-opening of the mackerel fishery is also a big one for all our fish harvesters, said Glode. “Getting the commercial mackerel fishery re-opened is a priority for us this year.”
Depending on the fishing season, Glode said the young harvesters committee will likely meet every month or so. The committee also discussed the possibility of creating sub-committees to work on different issues.
The appointments to the committee are for a three-year term ending in December, 2028.
