An anti-exploitation protest marches through the Papatoetoe town centre. Photo: RNZ / Lucy Xia
Immigration advocates want a pause in the government's Accredited Employer Work Visa (AEWV) scheme and hope it will be ultimately scrapped, after hundreds of migrant workers were left jobless soon after arriving.
Many were employed in the construction industry according to data from Immigration New Zealand (INZ), showing that builder's labourers and carpenters are the highest represented occupations among AEWV applicants as of May, closely followed by chefs.
The workers are often fired within days or weeks of employment after paying off-shore agents thousands of dollars to arrange a work visa.
More than 70,000 people have arrived under the scheme, which started last July and was designed to reduce exploitation - but advocates and experts say the new settings make it easier for employers to get accreditation to hire migrants and has exacerbated exploitation.
By May, INZ had received 694 complaints related to accredited employers. It is investigating and has so far found 69 employers "of concern".
Anu Kaloti of the Migrant Workers' Association says Immigration NZ should give the affected workers open visas. Photo: Supplied/Anu Kaloti
Situation will be 'out of control' if visa doesn't pause - advocate
Anu Kaloti from the Migrant Workers' Association said she had seen the exploitation affecting workers from India, Nepal, Sri Lanka and South America.
The lack of verification in INZ's process of giving accreditation to employers was problematic, she said.
INZ needed to stop approving more accredited employer work visas tied to employers until the scale of the problem became clear, she said.
"While they try to understand the depth and breadth and extent of exploitation that migrants are suffering, we strongly feel that the accredited employer work visa should be put on hold for the time being."
She said the ultimate goal would be to scrap the employer-tied visa category.
The workers left stranded had few options, and many were reluctant to shift to a migrant exploitation protection visa, Kaloti said.
"When a worker has spent tens of thousands of dollars to secure a two or three year work visa, I think that in their mind, it's too much of a trade-off to then suddenly go onto a six months work visa," she said.
Kaloti said Immigration should give the affected workers open visas.
Sher Singh of the Migrant Rights Network addresses people at a protest against migrant worker exploitation, in Papatoetoe. Photo: RNZ / Lucy Xia
Sher Singh from the Migrant Rights Network shares these views and fears the situation will soon get "out of control" if the government does not pause the AEWV visa category.
Thousands had already been affected and more would fall victim, with some paying up to $30,000 for their visas, he said.
"If you go to the airport, if you spend a day there, you will see migrants standing there on streets with papers in their hands and they don't know where to go."
Singh said many would be forced to overstay to recover the money they paid to agents.
It was almost impossible for the workers to find jobs within the six month period of the exploitation protection visa, he said.
Along with the Aotearoa Tongan Response Group and the Migrant Rights Network, the Migrant Workers' Association organised an anti-exploitation protest in Papatoetoe today.
The protest called for the government to scrap the accredited employer work visa, give open visas to workers affected and offer amnesty for overstayers.
Around 100 people gathered outside the Papatoetoe Recreation Ground, before marching through the Papatoetoe town centre.
Protesters against migrant worker exploitation gather in Papatoetoe. Photo: RNZ / Lucy Xia
Lawyer calls for NZ employers to hire stranded workers
Auckland lawyer Zhao Zong-Pei from Lowndes Jordan is representing over a dozen Chinese workers, including some who are living in cars.
Zhao said he had interviewed around 90 affected workers in the past few months.
"A lot of them that I've spoken to obviously and naturally are very anxious, very concerned and some of them have turned their attention to, perhaps, substance unfortunately," he said.
He said the majority of the workers he had spoken to were Chinese men and were predominantly working in construction - the youngest were in their twenties, and many came from a village background.
Zhao said most of his clients had paid agents in China, who were working closely with agents in New Zealand, but he said it was hard to find evidence to define the relationship between the two.
New Zealand employers thinking of hiring overseas should look to the talent pool among the stranded workers, instead of filing new AEWV applications, and the government should help facilitate this, he said.
Easy accreditation process loophole for some employers - immigration advisor
Immigration advisor Katy Armstrong said while the selling of visas had existed for a long time, this form of exploitation had "intensified" with the introduction of the new AEWV scheme.
The loosening of requirements for employers to get accreditation under the scheme was to blame, she said.
"If you're an employer and you're unscrupulous, you can go and get yourself accredited with no documents or low documents, some of those accreditations come through as we know it in 90 minutes, boom you're accredited," she said.
Armstrong said the government had rolled the visa scheme and accreditation of employers in a rush amidst the post-Covid turbulence and labour shortages last year.
"There's been a mentality of just get them in, get them accredited, and weed them out on renewal, now that's one way of doing it, I can understand it, however there's a cost and this is the cost," she said.
Prior to the scheme, employers needed to provide evidence to pass the labour market test, demonstrating that they advertised locally and could not fill the role, she said. Whereas now, employers were only required to show the advert as part of the "job-check" requirement, but not the results of the advert.
The process for employers to get the licence to hire overseas workers was "automated" and like a "tick-box" exercise, Armstrong said.
The visa category had created a "commodity" of job tokens - a tangible thing which some unscrupulous employers could sell, she said.
She said for those employers, the AEWV settings sent out the message: "It has never ever been easier to support a work visa".
Meanwhile, Armstrong did not think that pausing the AEWV would solve the issue.
"Despite the fact that I think this is as bad as I've ever seen, worse than I've ever seen, I wouldn't want good employers to be punished for those wrongdoings of a few.
"What I really feel strongly about is the fact that this was foreseeable when you basically created rules that are so lowest common denominator, that allowed you to get accredited on pretty much nothing… they need to toughen that up," she said.
Immigration New Zealand will not pause AEWV
INZ national manager investigations Stephanie Greathead said while they were aware of the immigration scams, a pause on the visa was not being considered.
The majority of employers were doing the right thing and relied on overseas workers to fill positions that had been hard to fill in the domestic market, she said.
Migrant exploitation and scams existed under the old essential skills visa system, and had not started happening as a result of the accredited employer work visa, she said.
Immigration Minister Andrew Little Photo: RNZ / Angus Dreaver
Meanwhile, INZ has identified 69 accredited employers of concern as part of its investigations, but refuses to say how many have been stood down.
This year, it has so far done post accreditation checks on 497 employers out of 23,744 accredited employers in the country and said all of those checked were compliant.
INZ aims to check 15 percent of all accredited employers each year.
INZ will not say how many of the 694 accredited employer-related complaints it has received as of May that are still active.
An RNZ Official Information Act request for this information was declined, with INZ saying it would take too long to manually search each of the 694 files to get the information, which it estimated would take 58 to 116 hours to complete.
Immigration Minister Andrew Little said he would not consider giving open visas to affected workers.
Workers could apply for the migrant exploitation protection visa, the dismissed worker visitor visa, or transfer their AEWV to another company, he said.
Little said he was confident about INZ's handling of the investigations relating to AEWVs.
"I'm aware there are complaints about the conduct of employers who have employed people under the AEWV scheme.
"I am satisfied that Immigration NZ has effective investigatory processes for these complaints and where appropriate, imposes sanctions on employers who are found to be in breach of their obligations," he said.