How the federal government parses the meaning of “American-made” tuna for school lunches could boost a South Georgia canning operation, amid a fierce lobbying battle that includes accusations of child labor.
The fish fight pits tuna conglomerates against each other, and one that comes out ahead is Chicken of the Sea, which has a canning plant in Lyons. That’s because a massive federal spending bill expected to pass this week asks the Department of Agriculture to consider ditching the requirement that effectively makes the tiny island U.S. territory of American Samoa the only source for tuna purchased by the federal school lunch program.
The dispute shows how each line of the 1,500-page spending bill (plus hundreds of pages of addenda) Congress is set to vote on this week is subject to a lobbying deluge. And it also displays how Georgia’s wide-open U.S. Senate race has its political tentacles in unexpected places.
U.S. Rep. Jack Kingston, R-Savannah, is among those pushing to loosen the “Buy American” requirements on USDA purchases of tuna for school lunches. Chicken of the Sea cans the tuna in Lyons, near Vidalia, but processes it in Thailand – making the company ineligible to supply school lunches.
The Thai plant has faced allegations of using underage workers, which dovetails with a recent controversy for Kingston in the Senate campaign when he said students on free or reduced-price lunch programs could sweep cafeteria floors to earn their benefits.
Kingston later said he was trying to make a point about personal responsibility and all children – not just the poor — should build a strong work ethic, but the remark has drawn attacks from his rivals for the GOP nomination and from liberal commentators as insensitive.
Del. Eni Faleomavaega, a non-voting Democratic delegate from American Samoa, took a swipe at Kingston in an op-ed in The Hill newspaper Tuesday in which he pushed to keep the restrictions unchanged.
“Once you unveil the truth, it is crystal clear that proponents of changing the Buy America requirements for canned tuna in our school lunch program are the same proponents who believe poor children should sweep floors in exchange for their lunch,” Faleomavaega wrote.
“It is bad enough that child labor and human rights abuses exist. But it is disgraceful to suggest that poor kids in Asia or anywhere else should be forced to provide tuna sandwiches for America’s school lunch program.”
Kingston told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that he was surprised at the personal backlash from American Samoa backers and he considered Faleomavaega a friend.
“One of the great parts about running for office is you’re no longer entitled to freedom of speech anymore, and trying to have intelligent thoughtful conversation seems to be increasingly difficult,” Kingston said.
In recent years, StarKist has had an effective monopoly on the multimillion-dollar school lunch market by basing its full operation in American Samoa, where fish processing is a crucial pillar of a struggling economy.
Tri Marine is building a $50 million operation in the South Pacific territory, according to Faleomavaega, putting it in the competition for federal tuna soon.
It's a lucrative contract: From 2002 to 2011 StarKist sold about $69 million worth of tuna to the federal government. But it has not sold any since then, as the USDA cut off purchases following a warning letter from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration raising health concerns at the StarKist plant.
The company cooperated with FDA demands and the agency cleared StarKist last year, meaning the tuna sales can restart soon, but the political hook was already baited.
Kingston said he had no parochial stake with the Lyons plant, which is in the neighboring district of Rep. John Barrow, D-Augusta. Instead, he said, it’s all about nutrition for the kids.
“The USDA has not been able to find somebody who can provide it domestically, and yet tuna is a good source of protein and tuna’s a good thing to eat,” Kingston said. “So I think the concern is, what can you do to not necessarily go into the Buy American provision, but are there alternatives?”
One alternative would be Chicken of the Sea, which did $74.5 million worth of business with USDA from 2004 to 2009 before it ditched American Samoa for Thailand, where the heads and tails of the fish are cut off, and Lyons, where they are canned at a plant that supports about 400 jobs. The fish are caught by U.S. vessels in international waters.
Chicken of the Sea's parent company, Thai Union, was named in a report last year by Finland-based advocacy group Finnwatch as employing children as young as 14 at its Thailand factory, among other alleged worker abuses. The company told Finnwatch the kids had fake IDs from Myanmar and vowed to look into the accusations.
Faleomavaega’s office used the Finnwatch report in a PowerPoint presentation it circulated around Capitol Hill that said allowing Chicken of the Sea and its lobbying ally Bumblebee into the school lunch program would promote “human trafficking.”
In a statement to the AJC, Chicken of the Sea Chief Operating Officer David Roszmann called child labor “intolerable.”
“We are leaders in fighting against child labor in Thailand and open our factories to audits by outside agencies to ensure compliance,” Roszmann said. “Our parent company, Thai Union Frozen, is also a member of the UN Global Compact and the International Labour Organization’s Good Labour Practices and considers its facilities in Thailand a model for the rest of the country.”
A U.S. House appropriations bill released last year included a request for a report from the USDA on how to allow the “option for less than 100 percent of the value of the tuna product be United States produced.” American Samoa backers see this as a gateway to changing the requirements.
A behind-the-scenes lobbying battle splashed into public view with a story last week in The Hill in which StarKist and Tri Marine backers raised the child-labor allegations.
The public dust-up has not derailed Chicken of the Sea, as the $1.1 trillion spending bill released Monday night incorporated the House’s report request. The bill is set for fast-track passage this week to avert another government shutdown.
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