Buzz
Farmers and orchardists take note. The same song sheet that was sung to destroy Australia’s Seasonal Worker Programs is now being sung here. Typically it begins with a media campaign. The basic outline goes like this.
- Create problems that don’t exist
- Enshrine structures in the legal framework to address virtual issues
- The overwhelming and impractical new set of rules forces potential earnings down
- Different problems then become reality and are blamed on the original virtual problems.
Cue regular opinion writer for Stuff and University of Otago senior lecturer Morgan Godfery.
OPINION: One of the important things the pandemic exposed was that the distinction between “highly skilled” and “poorly skilled” workers is more or less meaningless. The only designation that matters is “essential workers”.
Is a lawyer, for example, any more important than a horticultural worker? The former is certainly a skilled worker, but does their law degree make them any more skilled than the latter?
That is a straw man argument. “Skilled” is a specific legal term. Since the context is to do with Migrant and RSE visas, here is Immigration NZ’s definition of “skilled worker”, whereby New Zealand follows the ANZSCO definition.
If your occupation is ANZSCO skill level 1, 2 or 3 you must have:
- a relevant recognised qualification at or above the level described in the ANZSCO
- the relevant work experience that ANZSCO states can be substituted for a formal qualification – for any skill level 1 occupation you can substitute the ANZSCO qualification with 5 years of work experience, even if the ANZSCO does not state this
- a job or job offer on the Long Term Skill Shortage List, and you meet its requirements, or
- a job or job offer that needs occupational registration in New Zealand, and you hold full or provisional registration for the job.
Morgan knows this.
What makes a lawyer more worthy than a hotel worker? The lawyer would find it easier to gather sufficient points to win a Skilled Migrant Category Resident Visa, but as any Auckland or Queenstown business owner could tell you, the worker shortage is in the hotel and accommodation sector. Why should immigration policy, then, favour the former?
[…] these visa categories are secondary forms of residency. Under the RSE scheme, for example, workers fly in from the Pacific, work for their employer for a set period, and fly out after that period concludes. RSE workers cannot apply for residency under the scheme, even as the pandemic reinforced their importance to the economy.
Amazing how before Covid, the RSE program fulfilled Horticulture’s needs. What happened was that the Government’s draconian measures to deliberately suspend the program and force horticultural entities to recruit the non-existent local ‘talent’ failed miserably. RSE workers enjoy up to seven months of work in NZ. (In Australia, the equivalent is up to 9 months to three years under the newly formed Pacific Australia Labour Mobility [PALM] scheme). The very term RSE clumsily means Recognised SEASONAL Employer.
In 2021/2022 the RSE cap was increased to 16,000 in an admission that employers were still struggling to find New Zealanders willing to work on orchards for the minimum wage. And so, to fill that gap, thousands of workers disembark from flights from the Pacific, work their set period on the orchards, and then re-embark for home
Here is the rub – RSE workers are not on the minimum wage. They must be employed for a minimum of 30 hours at the living wage of $22.10/hr which is well above the minimum wage. These workers seriously value their opportunities and know that the RSE program is a life changer for them and their villages.
In one sense, this helps those workers provide for their families. They earn a wage that they otherwise might not have. But in another sense, it encourages their very exploitation.
WAIT! Here we go! The proven tactic used in Australia by the unions and MSM there rears its ugly head – let’s exploit exploitation. But exactly how are they being exploited? Let’s humour Morgan a little.
In 2009, when the scheme was still fresh, the media uncovered stories where employers were deducting “expenses” from workers, driving their take-home pay below the minimum wage.
The second tactic used by Australian interests comes in next – deductions. Morgan disingenuously states that the expenses drive their pay below the minimum wage. State the bleedin’ obvious – it is called tax, rent or mortgage payments, transport, food. Minimum – x = less than minimum.
These deductions were to pay for things like “accommodation” and “airfares” – expenses employers were meant to cover.
FACT CHECK: RSEs deduct accommodation, transport, and compulsory medical insurance. They also deduct tax (mandatory). Employers cover half the airfare. Those are the rules. Employers by law are NOT required to cover accommodation and more than half the airfares.
This reflects poorly on those rotten employers, sure. But the proper culprit is government policy. RSE workers find it difficult to access any recourse. When their visas expire their work does too, and there is no pathway to residency. That means RSE workers are – perhaps almost literally – disposable. One cohort flies in in 2022. Another cohort flies in in 2023. And on it goes.
The intent is seasonal working and the intent of a sovereign country’s visa laws. What he fails to realise is that, more often than not, 90% of the 2022 cohort will make up the 2023 cohort and many RSE workers come back every year for more than 6 years. In that time they make the equivalent of 36 years worth of wages. They are not “literally disposable” at all. RSE workers are well-loved and become like family.
Morgan rambles on, earning a small slice of the $55m pie, but the intent is clear. The seeds of mistrust are sown and we await the upcoming Labour Government’s Fairwork legislation. Ironic that the Australian regulations too are called “Fairwork”.
Prior to April 2019, the Fairwork regulations (in particular the Level 1 Casual Horticulture Award) allowed for group piece rates and no overtime. The Australian Workers Union and others lobbied to bring in overtime and a capped 38 ordinary hours. Group piece rates were abolished. The result was that farmers were forced to reduce seasonal worker hours down to 38 hours max with no overtime possible (farmers’ margins are low). Crops that rely on workers working as a team, such as mangoes, and many vegetable crops using conveyors or harvesting machines had to switch to hourly.
This saw seasonal workers’ gross wages plummet overnight from $1600 per week (mango workers) to the base minimum of about $840. Workers who begged to work more than the 38 hours (and most cherished that option) could not do so.
Here, RSE workers work up to about 60 hours per week, and if you dare tell them they are capped at NZ’s 40 hours a week they will scream blue murder. But I fear that this is where we are heading. The rising damp of socialist politics – where one cannot be advantaged over another for wanting to work and make more money than their colleagues – seeps upwards.
As in Australia, the unions who created the environment did their own form of exploitation. They exploited their self-created situation to their advantage by telling the workers exactly what Morgan opines – they are being exploited and they are being ripped off through deductions. Call me psychic but the unions will be next to speak. That will be their tactic. They will convince the RSE workers that they must join the union to survive against the evil employer. It will happen, and they have about 14 months of this sympathetic Government to push it through.