Photo: RNZ / Samuel Rillstone
- Funding for Labour inspectors checking on workplaces which employ seasonal staff from the Pacific has not increased in 17 years.
- In that time worker numbers have quadrupled from 5000 when the scheme to more than 20,000.
- The Government last week announced changes that increased worker numbers, opened the RSE (Recognised Seasonal Employer) scheme to workers from Timor Leste, and brought down wages.
Since 2007, Immigration New Zealand (INZ) has been receiving $1.3 million dollars a year to administer the scheme, and the Labour inspectorate less than $600,000.
Yet worker numbers have quadrupled from when the scheme started in 2007.
Two out of the country's 81 labour inspectors work full-time on RSE, with another two doing a mix of work. In the last year, they carried out 11 investigations.
The last one found on the authority's site dates back to 2019, related to an investigation three years previously.
A group of seasonal workers from the Solomon Islands are taking their former employer to court after wage deductions some weeks for expenses such as travel, insurance, wet weather gear and storage, reduced their pay packet to zero.
Pick Hawke's Bay, an incorporated not-for-profit organisation, denies it acted in breach of the law or the workers' employment agreements.
President of the Council of Trade Union president Richard Wagstaff said labour inspectorate numbers are below those in Australia and RSE workers need them more than most.
"People are frightened to speak up, they're crowded into accommodation, they're treated badly, they're spoken to badly - and now, with those issues presenting our government's response is to only talk to employers, not to unions or workers.
"When you consider the increase in people coming into New Zealand and the demands that are placed on the inspectorate, the real concern here is that we're not doing the regulation of the labour market properly. Whether it be in Immigration New Zealand and MBIE, or whether it be at WorkSafe, there seems to be a light-touch approach which sort of rests on the idea that you can trust employers to do the right thing. Of course, many employers are doing the right thing, but not all can be trusted to do that."
The RSE changes allow employers to pay minimum wage, with that only rising if they return for more than two seasons. Eighty-five per cent of RSE workers come from just three countries - Vanuatu, Tonga and Samoa.
Professor of international development at Massey University, Regina Scheyvens, researches the effects of RSE on Pacific countries such as Tonga and Vanuatu where one in five of all working-age men are in seasonal work schemes in Australia or New Zealand
"Now that means that they those places and sometimes particular localities are missing out on their maths teachers, their bank tellers, their mechanics, their baristas, their hotel workers - on a lot of people who otherwise would be contributing significantly to the economy and the society," she said. "So if it's 20 per cent overall in Tonga and Vanuatu, imagine what it is in a particular community that has a longstanding relationship with the RSE scheme and sends higher numbers than that, it might be 30 or 40% of the productive population is gone.
"That has really negative social and cultural consequences because you're taking a lot of people out of particular locations for a significant period of time, and so it might be seven months in one year, then they go home, and now they're being incentivised to come back even more than before, for multiple seasons, because the minimum wage is only going to be offered now if you're in the first year or second year of your RSE employment. So people are going to want to keep coming back for more and more seasons so they earn more money, and that means that a smaller number of people are getting benefits.
"But their families, meanwhile, are dealing with the long term impacts of being fatherless or motherless, missing some of the key people in the communities who could be otherwise taking on chiefly functions or other leadership roles in a rural community."
The Labour Inspectorate's specialist inspection manager Jeanie Borsboom said it completed 1600 RSE-related checks in the last year, including on employers' compliance, accommodation and wages.
"The Labour Inspectorate's work in relation to the Recognised Seasonal Employer scheme is mostly proactive. When requested by Immigration New Zealand, the Inspectorate assesses applications for RSE Status Accreditation and Agreements to Recruit (ATRs). This involves reviewing the employer's history of compliance with employment law, and immigration policies and standards, including those relating to accommodation and pastoral care.
"The Inspectorate makes recommendations to INZ by advising whether it supports an application for RSE status or an ATR from an employer with RSE status. That advice identifies any relevant issues of concern or non-compliance with RSE policy or employment standards so INZ can consider those issues when deciding whether to grant, refuse or revoke the accreditation of an employer and/or their ATR.
There was no extra funding in this year's budget, but it now comes from visa fees rather than taxpayers, she added.
The increased worker numbers, wage cuts, increase in accommodation costs and freezing of funding for compliance activities worries Prof Scheyvens.
"You do the maths, how much has the scheme increased in terms of the number of workers coming in those years? We absolutely need to put more funding into labour inspectors and just keeping an eye on ensuring the workers are aware of their rights and feel really well supported in claiming those rights. There's been some shocking cases I've read about recently in Australia. But you know, it might just be that we've got some similar cases here, but they haven't necessarily been exposed at this stage."
And she says there are cultural barriers to workers making complaints. "I think that for most employees, they will still feel that they need to do whatever their boss tells them, and if they don't, they they're at risk of being sent home," she said. "Pacific cultures are highly communalistic, and people don't make individual decisions, in a sense, and so they're always thinking of the impact on the wider group of what they say or do. So it's seen as entirely shameful if you apparently did something wrong and got sent home from a scheme like the RSE and you're not just letting down yourself, but your family and your wider community, and yes, it could impact on what has been quite a good income stream for people from your area or country."