Correspondence
Email sent to two media contacts at Trident Seafoods.
The email said: "We’re contacting you in light of our latest investigation which concerns the use of forced labor in China’s seafood processing industry, specifically North Korean workers in Chinese plants.
We have investigators on the ground in China who have been engaging with labor brokers directly involved with the transfer of North Korean workers to factories in China. Through this and other investigative means, including collecting online footage from the plants and interviews with workers recently returned to North Korea from China, we’ve found large numbers of North Korean workers at a range of seafood processing plants in Dandong city, close to China’s border with North Korea.
As part of this work, we have information that as recently as December 2023, there were 50-70 workers at Dalian Haiqing Food Co. Ltd. in Dandong. According to trade records, Trident Seafoods Corporation was the consignee for shipments of seafood, including pollock, from Dalian Haiqing between October 2017 and December 2023. The use of North Korean workers was prohibited by the United Nations Security Council in 2017, with Resolution 2397. Furthermore, under the Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA), passed in 2017, the United States prohibits the import of any goods produced by North Korean nationals. Like the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA), which pertains to Xinjiang labor, CAATSA has a "rebuttable presumption" whereby all North Korean workers are presumed to be state-sponsored forced labor.
As a result, we have several questions:
- While we understand that you may not be aware of the above issues, we want to ask if Trident has any comment about this information that we are presenting?
- Can you please itemize for us which of your customers receive seafood tied to Dalian Haiqing?
- Has Trident conducted any social audits at this plant and if so what type, when, with what result, and were these audits unannounced?
- If audits were indeed conducted at this plant, what language or process was included in those audits specifically to identify the presence of North Korean workers?"
Alexis Telfer replied for Trident, saying: "Thank you for reaching out to Trident Seafoods. We have been impressed with the reporting by Ian Urbina and the Outlaw Ocean Project and hope you saw our CEO's response posted on our website.
I appreciate you letting us know about your findings at Dalian Haiqing Food Co. Ltd in Dandong.
I will be back in the office next week after the U.S. MLK Day holidays and can answer additional questions then. For now, I want to provide you with a high-level response.
Trident has taken an active stance against any form of forced labor, including investing in our own robust Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) program in addition to the use of third-party social audits. We conduct on-site training and audits, including at our China partner operations. We maintain a strong, hands-on approach to managing our CSR risk at each of our manufacturing sites. We require full access to the sites beyond the segment of the facility producing for Trident to ensure compliance with our Supplier Code of Conduct. However, we do not audit other entities and facilities held by parent companies where we do not do business and are not seeking to do business in the future.
I confirmed with our team that Trident purchases finished products from Dalian Haiqing Food Co. However, we only transact with plants located in Zhuanghe. Trident does not receive products from Dandong nor do we have any dealings with manufacturing facilities located in Dandong.
Please provide any insight you have on the Dalian Haiqing Food Co. facility(ies) of concern, including plant name(s), for our further investigation next week. While we do not operate in the area or plant(s) you referenced, we will investigate appropriate corrective actions for this company. We will follow up with Dalian Haiqing and with you next week."
The Outlaw Ocean Project responded: "Thank you for your email, appreciate the quick initial response. To clarify, the company we are referring to is Dalian Haiqing Food (Chinese name 大连海青水产有限公司) based in Zhuanghe City (near Dandong, rather than in Dandong), Liaoning province."
Alexis Telfer replied for Trident, saying: "Thanks again for your outreach to Trident. We appreciate your work and efforts to engage companies like ours that take advancing ethical and transparent seafood supply chain practices throughout the industry very seriously.
Thanks for clarifying that your information pertains to Dalian Haiqing Foods, Co. As you may be aware, this is a parent or holding company with several subsidiary companies covering various facility locations in China. Trident has business relationships with three of these subsidiary companies, none of which are based in Dandong: Dalian Jiaming Food Co., Ltd. Dalian Fulejia Foodstuffs Co., Ltd. Dalian Haikuo Food Co., Ltd.
Each of these entities/facilities with which we have agreements holds its own distinct certification and registration numbers. In the past, we had a business relationship with a fourth entity, Dalian Haiqing Foods Co., LTD. The Second Branch, which was also based in Zhuanghe. That company and facility has since closed down and the Trident work was absorbed by the current three entities. In the time that Trident transacted with the former entity, it complied with our CSR requirements.
All Trident seafood suppliers in China have current third-party SMETA audits. Trident requires the 4-Pillar SMETA versus the narrower scope 2-Pillar SMETA option. Strategically, we use two independent audit firms for social audits in China to invite new perspectives and opportunities for improvement through the audit process. As stated previously, Trident does not rely solely on third-party audits for its CSR risk assessments.
Trident complements these third-party audits with our own active approach to ensuring that our CSR program and policies are adhered to in all operations. In China, we have a full-time Trident CSR manager who conducts training and periodic audits and reports directly to the Global CSR Director in the U.S. In addition, we have our own Trident employees on-site at every facility, every day. These are typically Food Safety and Quality Assurance (FSQA) employees whom we have also trained on our CSR standards.
Trident does not tolerate any form of discrimination or forced labor. In some cases, our requirements are even more stringent than local laws. Leadership at each of the Dalian Haiqing Foods Co. subsidiaries in Trident’s supply chain have signed and accepted Trident’s Human Rights Policy and our Global Supplier Code of Conduct. By signing these documents, our suppliers commit to providing us with the transparency and on-site access necessary for Trident’s more hands-on CSR program. These policies are strictly enforced with our suppliers. Each entity/facility signed a set of CSR documents and we provide regular training and updates in addition to the audits and gap-closure processes to drive improvement and ensure compliance.
After your email, our team in the U.S. spoke with our teams on the ground in China and reached out to Dalian Haiqing Foods Co.'s leadership directly. Both confirmed that there are no workers from North Korea in the Trident supplier facilities. We conducted CSR audits in January, July, August, and October of 2023 and found no evidence or even suspicion of North Korean labor in the plants. The audits are extensive and conducted by Chinese-speaking employees of Trident. We are granted full access to the facilities where we do business, beyond merely the area where Trident products are processed. The audit results, combined with our daily on-site observations lead us to believe that the entities meet our CSR terms and conditions.
If you can provide specific information or examples of human rights abuses in any of the three entities with which we do business or with the employment practices of their parent company, we will certainly take these seriously and take immediate action."
The Outlaw Ocean Project replied: "Thank you for your time and attention on this. We appreciate you sharing those insights on the auditing process you have in place with your supplier, as well as your continued engagement with us.
Two of the three plants you have identified in your email of January 19, 2024, (Dalian Jiaming Food Co. Ltd and Dalian Haikuo Food Co. Ltd.) are based on the same site in Zhuanghe City. One of our investigators in China visited this site, providing video footage from the grounds. Haiqing also displays its branding at each of the facilities, and Chinese corporate records indicate it is still the parent company. We used mapping software and open source footage to independently confirm the location of this investigator’s visit. Our investigator who visited the plant was accompanied by a businessman who works with the plant and who said at the time of their visit there were 50-70 North Korean workers at the facilities.
Another investigator on our team has communicated with North Korean workers ███ these facilities. North Korean women ████ have described in writing to us at The Outlaw Ocean Project a number of serious issues, including sexual abuse and forced prostitution. We also corresponded with a plant manager from Haiqing who ███ the North Korean workers.
The information we have from our on-the-ground investigation is that North Koreans have been working at Haiqing’s facilities since at least 2021.
Given the sensitive nature of these issues, and the safety concerns we have for our sources on the ground, we request that none of this information is relayed to any of Trident’s staff in China. If such details are conveyed back to China, there will likely be an attempt to identify who visited the plant on our behalf and/or who presently works there and communicated with us. We are providing these details to Trident in the U.S. in a good faith effort.
There are some outstanding questions from our initial query, and we have additional questions in light of your recent email:
- Can you clarify if any or all of the social audits carried out in January, July, August, and October of 2023 were unannounced?
- Did those audits have processes in place for identifying the presence of North Koreans?
- Were the Chinese-speaking auditors Trident sent to the Haiqing plants also able to speak Korean? And did your auditors explicitly ask about the presence of any non-Chinese workers?"
Alexis Telfer replied for Trident: “The allegations that you shared are deeply concerning. I spoke with our leadership team and can assure you that the issue has our full attention. I can also confirm that we have not shared your information with our colleagues in China as we, too, want to ensure the safety of our employees and anyone who has spoken with OOP.
Please see below responses to your questions, and our proposal for next steps:
Can you clarify if any or all of the social audits carried out in January, July, August, and October of 2023 were unannounced?
Our CSR audits are announced given the extent of time and subject matter expertise required on-site to facilitate the audits. Our CSR program requires auditors to have unrestricted access to all areas of the site, beyond just the areas where Trident products are manufactured. For example, we audit the conditions of all living quarters, not only those inhabited by workers on the Trident production lines.
In addition to these scheduled audits, we also have full-time Trident employees on-site who are trained in our CSR initiatives. No products are processed on a Trident line without Trident employees overseeing production. These employees report directly to Trident and they have several avenues to report observations or concerns directly to us. We periodically rotate our Trident employees between sites, primarily to share best practices across the supply chain and also to prevent over-familiarity or undue influence.
Did those audits have processes in place for identifying the presence of North Koreans?
Trident’s CSR program is designed to detect North Korean and Uyghur labor by looking for actual or signs of the following:
- segregated living, eating, or working areas;
- locked doors;
- refusal to provide access to any requested areas; presence of guards;
- discriminatory wage and hour practices;
- abusive treatment of workers; difference between the number of documented or on-site workers versus the number of workers typically necessary to support known production volumes;
- abusive or disrespectful management style;
- refusal of Trident’s policy prohibiting the use of state-sanctioned forced labor programs.
Were the Chinese-speaking auditors Trident sent to the Haiqing plants also able to speak Korean? And did your auditors explicitly ask about the presence of any non-Chinese workers?
Trident’s CSR program includes interviewing facility leadership about the source of workers and we explicitly ask where any migrant workers are from. These interviews are conducted in Chinese.
I am aware of at least one Trident team member supporting our supply chain activity in China, including with these vendors, who speaks Korean. However, we have not yet encountered a situation requiring a Korean translator as our CSR program has not shown evidence of North Korean labor on our sites.
It is extremely worrying that the types of human rights violations you described could be occurring at our sites, despite our best efforts and intentions. We believe Trident has built a robust CSR program with standards that exceed both our competitors’ standards and any legal requirements. That said, Trident’s leadership team is prepared to take decisive action – with this supplier in particular and to improve our CSR program in general. If our program has not detected actual violations, we want to understand where what the gaps are and quickly implement changes that allow us to support an ethical and safe work environment. We believe we share the same goals as OOP – to drive transparency and continuous improvement in the supply chain to ensure that all people are treated fairly and with dignity and respect. We welcome your findings and thoughts on where our CSR program may have fallen short of achieving these objectives, and how we can improve.
Since we have no evidence of the issues you raised and we are also not engaging our China employees as agreed, I would like to set up a call with you to learn what additional information you can share to enable our investigative process. If you are open to this discussion, I propose scheduling as soon as possible.”
Alexis Telfer emailed for Trident: "Our leadership team is extremely concerned about the seriousness of the allegations raised by OOP and wants to take quick action. We also want to respect your request not to engage our China team or relay any of the information you shared. It would be incredibly helpful to have a discussion with you to agree on the best next steps that will meet our needs and keep people safe.
To be clear, we want to conduct an investigation specifically addressing the types of violations you mentioned. If our CSR program missed these violations, we want to understand the gaps and implement improvements. As you may be aware, we’re heading into Chinese New Year, which will severely limit our ability to visit sites and speak with people so we feel a sense of urgency to proceed. Please let me know if you’re available for a discussion this week. We can be flexible to accommodate time zone differences."
The Outlaw Ocean Project replied: "We genuinely appreciate your sense of alarm and we would like to assist in any way we can. Thank you for taking seriously the safety concerns that we raised. We do however need to conduct our interactions with you in writing. Our director, Ian Urbina, is at sea reporting and unable to make phone calls. For our part, we will continue to try to reply extremely quickly to your questions and with as much detail as possible about our findings.
In terms of what you can safely convey to your staff in China, we certainly do not want to hinder your efforts. Perhaps you can explain our broader findings to them by saying that over the past several months a team of journalists interviewed North Korean workers who worked as recently as 2023 at facilities they said were owned by Haiqing. These workers, most of them women, described their time doing seafood processing at Haiqing plants and some of them described sexual coercion from plant managers and sex for pay. The journalists also interviewed an individual who has done business with Haiqing in the past. This businessman visited and filmed the grounds of one of the plants on our behalf. This businessman also identified the dorms and said that Haiqing employed 50-70 North Korean workers and has done so since 2021.
We hope this helps you to investigate these matters further."
Alexis Telfer replied for Trident: "Thanks for your response and we truly appreciate your willingness to support our investigations. I understand the need to remain on email and am happy to proceed as such.
By way of an update, we’ve heard from one of our customers that they are also conducting an investigation after hearing what we assume are similar allegations from OOP. We fully support our customers’ actions and have offered to participate in their investigation if helpful.
Separately, Trident is suspending trade with DHF, and we are structuring our own investigation in collaboration with an independent third party to provide on-the-ground support. We will brief our China team members at the level of detail that you suggested below. This provides them with some context and allows them to reconsider what might have been missed in our CSR program. Between the fresh perspectives of a new, experienced investigative partner and the heightened awareness of our own team, we hope to understand what gaps exist in our program and how we can improve going forward. Ultimately, we want our program to prevent or address any exploitative practices and support a safe, fair, and healthy work environment for all employees.
I appreciate your need to protect your sources and don’t want to compromise your investigators or the identity of any of the people with whom you’ve spoken.
To best direct our investigation, can you answer these questions:
- Has OOP contacted the DHF parent company or any of the impacted site leadership directly for comment regarding the allegations?
- Can you confirm if the dorms in which the North Korean workers were filmed are on the campus or off-site?
- Do you have any other suggestions for strengthening our investigative approach to ensure we cover all the bases?
- Do you have any other suggestions for improving our CSR program?
Thank you."
The Outlaw Ocean Project replied: "First, let me say Trident's willingness to engage with us in a candid and transparent way is refreshing and quite unusual in your industry. Thank you for that. We genuinely want to engage with you in a way that is constructive as I do believe we both share a desire to fix certain problems.
With regard to your email, yes, we are trying to be consistent with all companies in this investigation. So, when we find evidence of problems and evidence that we think is credible we contact any companies that we think are touched by these problems. We are doing all these interactions in writing and on record. We plan to publish the interactions as we have throughout this investigation on our Discussion Page. The reason for this approach is so that other reporters, researchers, law enforcement, lawmakers and whomever else can see the full range of interactions as they take next steps.
As pertains to your questions, let us try to answer the ones we can.
You asked: Has OOP contacted the DHF parent company or any of the impacted site leadership directly for comment regarding the allegations?
We indeed reached out to Haiqing on January 12, 2024, by email. They replied on January 13, 2024 with a brief statement, which translated reads: “Thank you for your interest in ocean-related human rights and environmental issues. However, our Dalian Haiqing Foods does not employ overseas North Korean workers. We hereby clarify. Thanks!”
You asked: Can you confirm if the dorms in which the North Korean workers were filmed are on the campus or off-site?
The dorms that the businessman identified were on campus but he did not say much about whether all workers stay at that location. He simply pointed them out when the visit occurred and he also said that we should stop filming at that point because there were North Korean workers likely there at the time. He did say separately though that he knew, having done prior work with the company, that 50-70 North Korean laborers work at the Haiqing plants.
Do you have any other suggestions for strengthening our investigative approach to ensure we cover all the bases?
Do you have any other suggestions for improving our CSR program?
On this matter, I fear our reply to this and your previous question may feel tedious or pedantic to you because we are going to cite a line that we have to walk that may not feel consequential to you. We are a journalism organization, not an advocacy organization. We do investigative reporting and we try to highlight problems worth being fixed. We try to do so in a rigorous but fair way. We do not, however, tend to cross too far over the line into advocating specific solutions to these problems. Our organization has tried to put forward what other stakeholders (be they academics, industry consultants, government officials, advocates, etc) suggest should be done to improve supply chain traceability and accountability when it comes to labor or marine concerns. The place for that type of reporting is on the Solutions Page. We also recently published a substack specifically relating to common flaws in social audits as cited by federal agencies.
Much of what is said in these online spots may not apply to Trident because, from what we understand, your company already has attempted to do things differently and not necessarily, for example, use typical social audits in China, where they seem highly ineffective. However, as for offering more concrete advice on how best to possibly fix your staff's ability to catch the presence of (state-sponsored) forced labor such as North Koreans or Uyghurs in the parts of your supply chain that are based in China, this is not a topic we can properly offer insight. We can describe what we found in our investigation - as we have done - and report what we hear from experts about supply chains generally concerning the feasibility of doing this type of watchdog work in a place like China or on fishing ships generally.
Thanks again."
Email sent to the contact address for Pickenpack, a Trident Seafoods company. The email said: "We’re contacting you in light of our latest investigation which concerns the use of forced labor in China’s seafood processing industry, specifically North Korean workers in Chinese plants.
We have investigators on the ground in China who have been engaging with labor brokers directly involved with the transfer of North Korean workers to factories in China. Through this and other investigative means, including collecting online footage from the plants and interviews with workers recently returned to North Korea from China, we’ve found large numbers of North Korean workers at a range of seafood processing plants in Liaoning province, on China’s border with North Korea.
We have information that as recently as December 2023, there were 50-70 workers at Dalian Haiqing Food Co. Ltd. in Liaoning.
The use of overseas North Korean workers was prohibited by the United Nations Security Council in 2017, with Resolution 2397 setting a deadline of December 2019 for the repatriation of all such workers to North Korea. Under the Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA), passed in 2017, the United States prohibits the import of any goods produced by North Korean nationals unless clear and convincing evidence is provided that indicates the materials were not made with forced labor.
According to trade records seen by The Outlaw Ocean Project, Pickenpack was the consignee for multiple shipments of seafood from Dalian Haiqing in 2020, 2021 and 2022.
In light of the above, we have the following questions for Pickenpack:
- While we understand that you may not be aware of the above issues, we want to ask if Pickenpack has any comment to make in response to this email?
- Can you confirm or deny if Pickenpack supplied any product from Dalian Haiqing to Aldi or Albert Heijn?"
The Outlaw Ocean Project emailed Trident: "We’re getting contacted by industry press folks who are asking us about the January 26 blog post by Trident CEO Joe Bundrant. We hadn’t realised you were going to put something out publicly before we published our story. Do you intend to do any more of that, as it may affect how our work is published?"
Alexis Telfer replied for Trident: "Thanks for reaching out. No, we do not plan to share details about our current conversations with OOP, the allegations, or our investigation.
Your original New Yorker report encouraged us to think about how Trident can contribute to the conversation by sharing our CSR program with others. We're learning that many do not fully understand the uniqueness of our CSR program. The story on our website is a planned follow-up to a previous op-ed. We want to be transparent about our investment and practices and reiterate that we're continually learning and refining the program. We only briefly mentioned suspending a supplier as an example of how we enact our CSR protocols to demonstrate commitment to enforcing our Supplier Code of Conduct, and how we use these opportunities to continue improving the program. We do not attribute any allegations to OOP and this is not the focus of our story. We’re careful not to place anyone at risk – particularly as the investigations are still ongoing based on the allegations you shared with us in confidence."
Trident, the parent company of Pickenpack, replied: "Our subsidiary company in Germany – Pickenpack Seafoods – notified us that on January 29th, you reached out to them regarding the Haiqing allegations. I advised our team in Germany that we are corresponding with you and request that you direct all future Pickenpack-related questions to us for efficiency’s sake. As you know, we have suspended trade with Haiqing while we conduct a thorough investigation, and we are trying to keep the information contained to protect the safety of the people involved and the integrity of the investigation. Please let me know if you have any concerns with this approach."
The Outlaw Ocean Project replied: "Thanks for your email on this. Our approach is to reach out, where possible, to every company we have found to be potentially tied to the plants covered by our investigation, hence our email to Pickenpack. Can Trident confirm if Pickenpack supplied any product from Dalian Haiqing to Aldi or to Albert Heijn?"
Trident emailed: "As you are aware, we are currently conducting an investigation based on the allegations you presented. Out of an abundance of caution, we have suspended trading with Haiqing while we conduct this investigation based on the limited information you provided. All of our effort and attention is focused on walking the fine line between maintaining the confidentiality you requested and ensuring we conduct a thorough investigation. This is made more difficult as The Outlaw Ocean Project broadens your outreach and more people are made aware of the situation. I fear we are losing the element of confidentiality and surprise, which puts both the people and the investigation at risk. You specifically requested that Trident not engage our China teams, however the information is proliferating and making it difficult to ensure the integrity of our investigative approach. We are also constrained by the upcoming Chinese New Year, during which time most companies shut down for holidays, and our investigators will not have access to fully staffed sites. We are running against a clock and doing our best to be responsive and responsible. For this reason, we have not yet begun digging into downstream supply chain considerations. We are purely focused on seeing if we can independently support your allegations at the source. We’ll get back to you when we have more to share."
Ian Urbina replied for The Outlaw Ocean Project: "Let me hop in here. You make a fair point here and we’d definitely like to accommodate. Can you specify what information are hoping to share with your China colleagues to assist your investigation? I am inclined to give you a green light but it would be good to know details."
Ian Urbina emailed Trident: "Checking back here, Alexis. We do not want to delay or hamstring you so please do let me know your answer on this query when you’re able so we can try to quickly green-light you to proceed."
Alexis Telfer replied for Trident: "Thanks for checking in. We’re on the West Coast, and time zones are challenging for quick responses. We greatly appreciate your willingness to support our investigative process.
North Korean labor
Our primary concern is to confirm whether North Korean workers are now or have been employed at Haiqing. The allegation from OOP is based on a hearsay account from a third-party businessman. We want to speak with our in-country CSR Manager, who conducts our independent audits and has had regular access to all the living quarters on the Haiqing campus. We also want to engage with our employees whom we rotate between our supplier locations as they are on site every day, working side-by-side with Haiqing employees and are the best positioned to identify a foreign workforce. To do so, we would need to explain the nature of the allegations.
Coercive work environment
If we are not able to confirm the presence of North Korean workers, we have no way of designing a second-step investigation to address the allegations of sexual exploitation of Haiqing employees. Understandably, OOP has not shared evidence for these allegations, which leaves us severely constrained to verify the claims independently.
Haiqing leadership
Lastly, we want to engage with Haiqing leadership directly. We notified Haiqing that we were suspending trade while we conducted an investigation. However, we were not specific about the allegations beyond saying that we were notified that the company was using North Korean labor. Haiqing strenuously denied the allegations and also respects our decision to suspend while investigating. We have worked with Haiqing for a long time and they have made the investments and improvements required to comply with our CSR program. They have granted us unrestricted access to their site and, to date, we have not identified North Korean labor or indications of a coercive work environment. Haiqing leadership is asking appropriate questions about the status of their suspension and we will need to share more with them as our investigation progresses.
Your allegations are serious and we are doing all we can to be responsive and decisive. At the same time, we want to be transparent with and fair to our supplier and treat them as we would want to be treated. We have confidence in our CSR program and the integrity of our employees to raise concerns. We're also realists acknowledging that we're operating in a high-risk region where others do not meaningfully monitor for the use of forced labor programs. We designed our CSR program to do just that, whether a program is state-sanctioned or otherwise, and we're open to learning and improving our program and supplier training to ensure our suppliers conform to key elements of our Supplier Code of Conduct and Human Rights Policy."
The Outlaw Ocean Project replied: "Thank you for your email and for laying out those points. We understand the balancing act you’re trying to achieve. We too are attempting a similar balancing act in being transparent and fair, but rigorous and sufficiently skeptical of all parties. We will continue to try to assist you as best we can without stepping outside our role as a journalism organization.
One important point to clarify, however, is that in your email you said that the information is based on "a hearsay account from a third-party businessman". That’s not accurate. In fact, we have previously described to you multiple sources. Let me recap them. Then I’ll lay out which of these materials are safe for you to detail to your colleagues and which might not be.
Aside from the investigator and businessman who visited the plant and described the 50-70 North Korean workers who were at the facility, we also have interviews with North Korean workers who worked at the plant and described their experiences, as we detailed in our email to you dated January 25, 2024. We have interviewed two workers ████████████████████ and we have interviewed an additional person who was previously a manager at the plant but has since returned to North Korea. Thus, as mentioned before, the sourcing of the information about the presence of North Koreans at the plant has come from multiple people in varying roles and timeframes.
With regard to what you can tell in a safe way to your colleagues in China, we think it would be unequivocally dangerous for you to reveal to them specifics such as that we have communicated with two North Koreans ██████████ and one manager who has departed from the plant and is back in North Korea. We assume it is obvious as to why this would be dangerous but in case not: conveying that level of specificity to your colleagues in China about our North Korean interviewees would make it easy for them and the authorities to try to find them and likely prosecute them for assisting a western journalist. As a result, we ask for you only to refer to the fact that we have interviewed workers from the plant. For example, saying that aside from the businessman who provided us with this information, we also have interviews with multiple North Korean workers who have worked at the plant. Such wording would avoid specifying the number of workers, the gender of workers, or the fact that some of these workers recently left the plant ██████████.
Respectfully, we would like to add one other note. In your email of February 5, 2024, you say that “OOP has not shared evidence”. This is entirely inaccurate. Actually, we have gone above and beyond what is typical in the relationship between news outlets and the institutions they cover. We detailed our findings and provided you with ample time to review them. We have always replied to your follow-up questions fully and quickly. We have explained the sourcing of the trade data we used to connect the supply-chain dots between your company and this plant. We have laid out as clearly as feasible our methodology and sources.
As you probably know, journalism outlets do not normally share more than the result of their interviews or key parts of documents that they may have obtained. If by sharing evidence you mean presenting to you the actual people themselves who have served as investigators or sources for us in China or North Korea so that you can talk to them on your own, that is not a request we could fulfill.
In any case, we hope the reply above helps you in your efforts to rectify the concerns that our investigation has raised. "
Alexis Telfer replied for Trident: "Thank you for your response on Feb 6th. We have used the time between then and now to further our investigations and engage others in the manner you prescribed. Today, I’d like to update you on the status of our investigation, our findings, and the CSR program improvements currently under consideration.
Firstly, let me reiterate that we believe Trident and Outlaw Ocean Project are aligned in our mutual desire for a healthy and transparent work environment for seafood employees in China. We are committed to doing our part to make this a reality and our CSR program is a significant component of meeting this commitment. From the beginning, we have taken your allegations seriously, and we’re moving forward as expeditiously as possible. I sense your frustration at my characterization of OOP's engagement with Trident. To be clear, we fully respect your journalistic independence and I had hoped that my email was clear that I understand why OOP has not – and should not – share detailed evidence with us. The point of my comment was to explain that absent our ability to independently identify the presence of North Korean workers on site, we may not be able to address the additional allegations of physical abuse of North Korean women employees. I do not want OOP to think we discount the additional allegations, only that they are challenging to independently verify. I was not expecting further evidentiary disclosure.
Actions taken by Trident:
After receiving your initial email on January 12th and pursuant to our collaborative communications resulting in clarification of the exact names and locations of the impacted plants on Jan 21st, Trident implemented immediate actions.
-OOPs allegations are serious enough that, despite not yet having conducted our own investigation we immediately notified Haiqing leadership that Trident was suspending all trade with their company. -Trident continued to engage with OOP to answer your questions and to ask clarifying questions of our own to help design our investigative approach. -Trident engaged transparently with key customers – some of whom had already been contacted directly by OOP and were aware of the allegations, while others had not. -We expedited an independent, unannounced audit, including external surveillance and a site walk-through, and conducted employee and management interviews prior to the Chinese New Year and Spring Festival holidays in early February. -Before and after the CNY holidays and after receiving the go-ahead from you, we engaged selected members of our China-based CSR and FSQA teams to ascertain if potential red flags had been missed either in their observations or reporting. -We are thoroughly reviewing our CSR program for gaps and improvement opportunities.
Summary of findings to date:
We are by no means finished with our investigations or efforts to further strengthen our CSR program. Continued investigations are somewhat hampered by our limited need to be on-site at Haiqing given their suspended trade status with Trident. Regardless, now that the Chinese New Year holidays are over, we have resumed discussions with our China teams and have dug deeper to understand if they had unrecorded observations.
Here is a summary of our findings to date:
-We analyzed the findings of the unannounced audit, all previous SMETA audits, and reports from and discussions with Trident’s on-site FSQA and CSR employees, and have not been able to identify suspicion or evidence of North Korean workers at Haiqing. -There is no clear gap in our CSR program to explain how we could have failed to detect a large number of North Korean workers at the Haiqing campus. Regardless of our inability to independently substantiate the OOP allegations, we are proceeding on the assumption that they could be true and we’re taking action accordingly. -We have not resumed trading with Haiqing.
Actions for improving Trident CSR capabilities and practices:
Trident operates what we believe to be an industry-leading CSR program which includes initiatives to proactively detect possible human rights violations. To date, our CSR audits and program initiatives have successfully detected unacceptable work conditions that periodic independent third-party audits have missed, including evidence of exploited populations (although, not at the Haiqing plant). We understand such risks must be actively managed and we take the OOP allegations seriously. We will continue to investigate and implement program improvements.
Improvement recommendations under consideration: -Increase the number of Trident CSR Officers in China to diversify our approach and communication style with leadership and the workforce. -Train the on-site FSQA team members to a minimum competence in leading ad-hoc CSR walkthroughs. Currently, the FSQA team is trained on our CSR standards and how to detect high-risk indicators. -Contractually require training on Trident’s CSR standards in plant management onboarding processes. -Periodically update posters that detail the grievance mechanism for confidential reporting in any common language, and add a QR code to the posters. -Continue to expand credible, customer-approved, third-party audit capacity in China. -Continue to communicate externally and seek collaborations to advance ethical, safe, and decent living and working conditions in our seafood supply chain. -Further our approach to focus on partnering with smaller plants where we have a greater proportion of their production and a higher likelihood of detecting violations of our Supplier Code of Conduct. -Additionally, we engaged an independent consultant to review our CSR program and processes to seek opportunities to further strengthen the program.
We hope that our actions demonstrate our sincere commitment to living our company's Vision of making people’s lives better. We believe that our program works and is intended to provide good jobs that significantly improve outcomes for Chinese employees and their families. We also support the Outlaw Ocean Project’s mission to advance human rights and supply chain transparency in China, and we’re grateful for the light that you are shining on where the industry is falling short. Our CEO, Joe Bundrant, briefly met Ian in Washington D.C. at the congressional hearing last year and personally expressed his appreciation for the work you’re doing. He would welcome the opportunity to further expound on our commitment in person or on a Teams call. "
The Outlaw Ocean Project replied: "Thank you for your thoughtful and thorough note. As we have mentioned before, we will mention again: Compared to most other companies in your industry, Trident has been far more responsive and transparent to the questions we have posed and the concerns raised by the reporting. We have appreciated your tone and responsiveness. You may have mistaken for “frustration” our attempt to very clearly correct an error in your last email. No, we are not frustrated at all. We simply felt it important to point out a significant inaccuracy in your remark that the concerns raised in your supply chain were based on, as you said, "a hearsay account from a third-party businessman". That seemed intentionally minimizing and potentially dismissive. We instead itemized again for you our full findings, including the various types of sources and reports linked to the plant in your supply chain.
As for the steps you describe are taking to address the concerns, it is clearly a thoughtful and long list. That you are doing unannounced inspections is to our view an important move that most companies in China have not been able to accomplish due to the political setting there. We will consult and defer to experts who study the topic of supply-chain traceability and social audits to see whether, upon their review, they see these steps feel viable and effective at catching and countering the presence of forced labor (say, in the form of Uyghurs or North Koreans) in processing plants.
Lest we focus exclusively on the processing plants, we will likely also aim to return to a deeper discussion of the same concerns as they pertain to conditions on the vessels themselves in any given company’s supply chain, particularly those companies that rely on Chinese ships. We don't want to lose sight of that important but relatively overlooked part of this broader discussion about global seafood.
In any case, thank you again for your note. We will be back again likely with questions about your plans for social audits on vessels and plants in the Trident supply chain."
The Outlaw Ocean Project emailed Trident:
"As discussed in our email of February 24, 2024, we have engaged with experts on supply-chain traceability, labor protections and social audits to explore the steps Trident outlined it was taking to address the issues raised in our investigative reporting. We will share those experts’ insights and comments below along with relevant recent research on the topic of audits and worker protection, followed by further questions prompted by this review of Trident’s action plan.
The experts consulted for this included: Dr. Jessica Sparks, Assistant Professor in the Division of Agriculture, Food and Environment at Tufts University; Dr. Katrina Nakamura, Labor Safe Screen and the Sustainability Incubator; and Chris Williams of the International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF).
As before, we very much appreciate your continued engagement and discussion on the issues impacting workers throughout the seafood supply chain. We are very interested to hear your views on the below, as well as any updates you have on your investigation and your review of Trident’s corporate social responsibility (CSR) program.
Social audits: ‘Profoundly flawed and ineffective’ A growing body of academic research has found that social audits and industry certifications fail to adequately protect workers as they do not detect, address or prevent labor abuses. “Study after study has found that tools like social auditing and ethical certification are profoundly flawed and ineffective when it comes to the worst forms of labor exploitation,” Genevieve LeBaron, professor of politics at the University of Sheffield, said in an article for the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
One of the key failings in the methodology of audits and certification programs is that they do not rely on input from workers, as researchers from the University of Nottingham and the International Transport Workers' Federation found in their analysis of auditable standards and industry certificates relating to the fishing industry. “While these approaches may build transparency, consensus, and action when setting environmental standards, they disempower workers by allowing outside actors to overshadow worker perspectives or by the outright exclusion of workers from determining what issues need to be addressed and the processes and responsibilities for addressing them,” the researchers said in a paper published in Marine Policy in 2022.
Research shows that audits can compound the problems they are supposed to address by giving the misleading impression of workplace practices being fully above board when auditors are instead failing to find or report abusive behaviors. “In other words, a company might be technically complying with an initiative’s standards, but that compliance may be insufficient to address the specific abuse at which the standard is targeted,” the Institute for Multi-Stakeholder Initiative Integrity said in its 2020 report on corporate accountability and human rights. “Thus, harms could persist despite a member being deemed compliant.” This in turn, researchers say, gives consumers and legislators false confidence that industry stakeholders are adequately addressing forced labor and other workplace abuses.
Researchers have also found that the confidential nature of audits means that adverse findings are easier to dismiss or silence, and so offer little support to workers with grievances. “[Audits] come with no meaningful role for workers and their organizations, and virtually no repercussions for the brands when workers’ rights are abused or their safety is put at risk,” openDemocracy has said. “This enables brands to silence findings and walk away if the code of conduct auditors find problems too difficult to fix.”
Our investigation into forced labor in Chinese seafood processing found that all ten of the plants tied to Uyghur forced labor had been certified by the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC), and four by the Aquaculture Stewardship Council (ASC). We found evidence of Uyghurs working at processing plants within days of visits from auditors, including in one case on the very same day that an audit was conducted by the leading social auditor, S.G.S. Five of the fifteen plants that our investigation found to be using North Korean workers were certified by the MSC. Social audits were conducted by leading firms in those five plants, three by Intertek and two by S.C.S. One of those plants also passed a social audit conducted by the auditing firm BCI Compliance Group in December 2022. None of the audits detected the use of North Korean labor.
The MSC said that a recent update to their certification program would “provide seafood buyers and consumers with greater assurances” that certified companies did not use forced or child labor, but certificates were issued after all ten processing plants had accepted Uyghurs through government transfers. In response to the findings, the MSC acknowledged it was reliant on social audit, and was now concerned about the “demonstrated limitations of this independent verification, which is evident in some circumstances.” Sedex – the author of the world’s most widely used social audit standard, and the one used in all known audits of plants tied to Uyghur labor – told us that it was “difficult and risky for auditors themselves to explicitly recognise state-imposed forced labor” that “may have been covered up.”
The experts we spoke to about Trident’s action plan (as outlined in your February 23 email) echoed the above concerns in pointing to Trident’s ongoing reliance on social audits and voluntary corporate social responsibility programs, saying that neither is considered an effective worker-driven due diligence tool effective at identifying labor abuses. Trident appeared, they said, to be “doubling down” on using a system of social audits that did not, or would not, catch the issues raised in our investigation. “Trident's response does not specifically say that they have collected proof or details about worker origins or working conditions for all workers housed at the location. At this juncture, actions about the workers are what you want to see,” Dr. Katrina Nakamura told us.
Trident’s response also lacked detail on how subsequent audits were tailored or conducted to identify problems identified in The Outlaw Ocean Project’s reporting, the experts said. “Did auditors and Trident have an understanding of the specific barriers in this context that disincentivize workers from disclosing unacceptable conditions?” asked Dr. Jessica Sparks after reviewing Trident’s emails.
The experts’ views also reflected concerns raised in recent research on social audits about the independence of auditors. Given that third-party auditors work as contractors and consultants, there is a high risk of conflict of interest for auditors who have an incentive to make, or overlook, particular findings so as to ensure repeat business from various stakeholders. “Therefore, it is important that companies are involved in other types of measures, such as direct engagement with unions and other groups that represent rights holders and participation in credible multi-stakeholder initiatives," the Danish Institute of Human Rights said in a recently-published due diligence guide for companies in the fisheries value chain. On the subject of bolstering audits, Sparks told us: “The gold standard for a social audit would require a legally binding commitment so that a company has to continue to use the same auditing body regardless of their findings (and that investigative/auditing body needs to be highly trained, use investigators that speak the language of the workers, etc.). This is what occurs in the Fair Food Program and other worker-driven social responsibility models.”
Announced audits were of particular concern as an insufficiently robust method of checking worker welfare and accurately gauging conditions because the workplace knows exactly when the auditors are coming on site. As Chris Williams of the ITF told The Outlaw Ocean Project: “Any audit or inspection that is announced is unlikely to detect problems, it's like telling a drug dealer you are going to raid their property at 6pm next Tuesday; it is only unannounced inspections that are likely to uncover wrongdoing and issues around forced labor.”
‘Worker-led human rights due diligence’ Direct engagement with workers is fundamental to developing and implementing meaningful labor protections, according to myriad recent reports on the topic, including from the Danish Institute of Human Rights in 2024, the International Labour Organization in 2023, and the Institute for Multi- Stakeholder Initiative Integrity in 2020. “Even worker grievance mechanisms tied to social audits do not improve data verifiability or assurances of working conditions,” according to this study in Marine Policy. “This is because the voluntary, non-governmental social governance tools are not associated with meaningful company engagement of workers.”
The level of worker engagement in Trident’s social audits and corporate responsibility program was a point that came up repeatedly in the experts’ reviews of Trident’s action plan. They questioned a lack of clear human rights due diligence engagement with workers, and suggested more essential incorporation of workers’ views. Rather than rely on third-party audits such as the widely-used SMETA program, “Trident should be steered towards worker-led or centered human rights due diligence that includes workers or unions in the design, monitoring and implementation,” said Williams.
“Trident have said they will improve their corporate social responsibility (CSR) tools, but their CSR tools do not include human rights due diligence (not in their 2023 environmental, social, and governance report, or supplier code of conduct, or human rights policy),” said Nakamura. “The bottomline is that Trident has been very engaged with you about the association to their company but has not said that they have engaged with the problems or people that you have raised specifically.”
Trident was commended for having a grievance procedure in place and for efforts to keep that procedure updated and accessible to workers. The experts we spoke to, however, did raise questions about how the grievance mechanism operates in practice and how workers can engage it effectively. Sparks asked if Trident attempted to learn or understand how workers prefer to report grievances, if cultural factors have been taken into consideration when designing the mechanism, if any barriers to reporting a grievance have been identified, and if the process is trusted by the workers themselves. “The listed actions are all focused on detection of forced labor, but there appears to be no effort towards preventing unacceptable conditions or even detecting unacceptable working conditions that may not reach the threshold of forced labor,” Sparks added.
Trident’s suspension of trading with Haiqing also raised concerns among the experts we spoke to in terms of the effectiveness of Trident’s efforts to help workers when no longer in a trading relationship with their employer. “While this might be an effective solution to eliminating risk in their supply chain, it does not alleviate the harm to workers, and could potentially put them at greater risk,” said Sparks. “Thus, there needs to be an effort by Trident to remedy any harms to workers when they were still trading with Haiqing.” Williams of the ITF added: “What about protections and remedy for the workers affected?”
Nakamura also expressed caution over the apparent two-step process outlined by Trident to investigate the allegations of North Korean workers being subjected to sexual abuse. “In their correspondence, Trident has been very clear that ‘Our primary concern is to confirm whether North Korean workers are now or have been employed at Haiqing.’Any further actions by Trident for "designing a second-step investigation to address the allegations of sexual exploitation of Haiqing employees" depend on first ascertaining that,” Nakamura said. “This is a blind spot because they absolutely should have acted on the gender-based violence allegations immediately, regardless of the work visa status or language spoken by the workers concerned.”
‘China has not hidden its work programs and incentives’ The socio-political context of doing business in China was an important consideration among the experts to whom we spoke. American companies who use Chinese manufacturers or processors should be aware that they are working with partners who operate in a very different regulatory and legal context, they said, one that carries different labor abuse risks (for example, North Korean forced labor). They added that U.S. companies should inform and update their trading partners overseas about U.S. regulatory or legislative requirements that could impact on imports from that company, such as the Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act in 2017 or the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act of 2022.
“Trident has invested a substantial part of its business in China where labor norms and laws are different from the USA,” said Nakamura. “It is not sufficient or meaningful for a U.S. company to say that its goods made in China along the North Korean border could not possibly be made by North Korean workers. As a business strategy, it won't work in China because it is not enforceable. China has not hidden its work programs and incentives for North Korean and Uyghur labor transfers in any way. It is Trident's responsibility to operate under US law for all of its imports, not China's responsibility, and Trident has acknowledged that they are "realists" about the business environment.”
This also reflects the findings of our investigation into labor abuses in China’s seafood processing industry, particularly as regards the state-imported forced labor of Uyghurs which is actively promoted by the government, corporate groups and individual companies themselves. Company newsletters by one corporate entity, the Chishan Group, published multiple articles on the practicalities involved, including details of senior management cooperation with the agency involved in state transfers of Uygur labor, the arrival of Uyghur workers at the company’s sites in Shandong province, and special measures to provide a canteen for the Uyghurs.
These issues arising from U.S. businesses engaging factories in China as part of their supply chains reflect concerns in the seafood industry generally. As you may be aware, the Aquaculture Stewardship Council announced last week that it is ceasing its operations and investment in China. The move came in the wake of our reporting on Uyghur and North Korean forced labor in China’s seafood processing industry.
The social auditing blind spots in China are not just a seafood problem: In July 2021, the U.S. State Department saidhttps://www.state.gov/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Xinjiang-Business-Advisory-13July2021.pdf) in a business advisory that social audits, especially in China, are inadequate for identifying forced labor because auditors are commonly detained or harassed, audits often rely on government translators, and workers face reprisals for reporting abuses. And in November 2023, U.S. Customs and Border Protection advised companies that a social audit can only be used as credible evidence clearing a company accused of forced labor if it was unannounced, addressed all indicators of forced labor, and conducted interviews in workers’ native languages. These conditions are rarely met for social audits conducted in China, according to various human rights groups such as the Worker Rights Consortium, which offered testimony before a Senate hearing in February 2023.
Ultimately, social audits and industry certifications are just two elements in a wider systemic problem of companies relying on corporate social responsibility to address industry abuses and shortcomings without making structural changes that can have a meaningful impact on labor conditions, according to researchers. As OpenDemocracy put it: “The same models get tried and tried again, yielding disappointing results, yet advocates of CSR [corporate social responsibility] continue to declare that the next time will be different.”
“Social audits are designed to show the firm in a good light, not a bad light,” Nakamura told us. “By design and intent, social standards are market-based promotional instruments used to deflect liability and not problem-solving or investigative tools to enforce labor and trade laws or detect violations.”
Questions for Trident:
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Your initial response to our investigation focused on actions being taken at the plants that we identified, but obviously the flaws in the underlying auditing system imply that there is probably need for a broader review of all your plants. Plants had documented cases of forced labor on the premises, but the auditing that should have caught the presence of those workers clearly failed. Would Trident be willing to provide a list of all the seafood processing plants that it uses for supply in China, so we can see if we have evidence of state-sponsored forced labor in the form of North Koreans or Uyghurs at any of these other plants?
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You have said that Trident would investigate further. Can you please provide a timetable of when that investigation will be finished, and will you be making the findings public or only sharing it internally?
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Severing ties with one plant has been compared to us by some experts as removing a tumor, but not really confronting the underlying disease. In the spirit of that metaphor, we wondered if Trident is going to take steps at all of the plants that supply Trident, directly or indirectly?
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Many of the experts we spoke to said there are certain issues in China that are too politically sensitive to raise, such as human rights generally or more specifically the treatment of North Korean or Uyghur workers. We’ve been told by experts that if auditors raise those hot button issues in writing or otherwise there’s a very good chance that the firm conducting the audits will not be allowed to continue operating in China. Will you comment on this inherent challenge and the way that these issues are supposed to be policed?
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In your email of February 23, 2024, you said that Trident “expedited an independent, unannounced audit, including external surveillance and a site walk-through, and conducted employee and management interviews.” Who conducted this audit? Did they carry out an audit under a set standard or was it a bespoke audit designed to identify the issues raised in our investigation (specifically, the use of North Korean forced labor and allegations of sexual abuse)?
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We’ve heard from experts and industry insiders that plants are frequently informed about an upcoming audit which is supposed to be ‘unannounced’and that unannounced audits are not possible in practice in China, thereby fundamentally undermining the basic premise of such an audit. What does Trident do to check that inspectors and auditors do actually show up without prior notice to check conditions at plants that supply Trident?
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Regarding the employee interviews: How were these interviews conducted? Were auditors aware of any barriers in this specific context which deter workers from disclosing abusive practices or mistreatment? How did Trident go about identifying and removing these barriers before interviewing workers?
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Can you share the findings or report of this expedited audit?
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In the February 23 email you said: “To date, our CSR audits and program initiatives have successfully detected unacceptable work conditions that periodic independent third-party audits have missed, including evidence of exploited populations (although, not at the Haiqing plant).” Can you provide insight on why Trident’s third-party audits are not working?
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What were the consequences, if any, following the discovery of previously undetected unacceptable work conditions missed by third-party audit? And what was the remedy for the affected workers?
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Some researchers have said there’s an inherent conflict of interest in the structure of auditing whereby the companies being audited are paying the auditing firms to do that work. This has been criticized as a system in which firms are being paid to police their own clients. Trident seems to avoid this problem generally by relying on their own inspectors, but don’t the same basic concerns also apply: that those conducting the audits are not sufficiently independent of the companies and plants that they’re supposed to be policing?
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In the February 23 email, you said Trident would “Continue to expand credible, customer- approved, third-party audit capacity in China”. What does “customer-approved” mean?
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Many of the prior questions we’ve asked about audits concern actions that may not be feasible in China because of the nature of the government there. If this is true and indeed direct interviews with workers and unannounced spot checks are not permitted, has Trident considered relocating its work outside of China?
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Was there any worker input in developing Trident’s Supplier Code of Conduct? Which worker organizations, unions or federations does Trident engage with as part of its human rights efforts?
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Does Trident have a process in place for changing its purchasing practices when required by U.S. trade laws to prevent the import of goods made with forced labor? Does it notify suppliers in pertinent locations immediately of the specific prohibitions when such laws take effect, or could it start to?
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Trident's 2023 environmental, social and governance (ESG) report says that, "In all of Trident’s operations around the world, we pay above minimum wage." Tracking wages is a good method for detecting signs of prohibited labor practices in U.S. imports (such as forced labor and debt bondage, or child labor) particularly in a seasonal industry where employment is mostly informal, like the seafood sector. Does Trident have, or could it implement, a measurement program to track wage rates for all workers in its supply chain, not only salaried employees or office staff?
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Does Trident have procedures to respond to human need with direct assistance when it is detected in its supply chain (in addition to procedures for confirming or refuting violations)?
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Trident said it would “Periodically update posters that detail the grievance mechanism for confidential reporting in any common language, and add a QR code to the posters.” Can you provide any statistics on the grievances raised to date this year, by number, grievance type and resolution?"
Trident responded: "Thank you for consulting with experts and for sharing their feedback with us. We appreciate the insight and will certainly consider the recommendations as we continue to strengthen our CSR program.
We agree that this is an incredibly complex, systemic issue and Trident is committed to making a difference within our supply chain while the seafood, public, and other sectors work to address risks of exploitive labor practices in China manufacturing more broadly. As such, Trident will continue to lead with our CSR program and do all we can to improve the lives of those within our orbit. Again, we thank you for bringing to our attention the allegations at Dalian Haiqing Food Co. We are taking this as a learning opportunity to improve our CSR program, including considerations of expert feedback your sources and others have provided. This an internal activity and we're going to decline to comment further at this time.
Wishing you continued success with your endeavors."