Migrant workers pay thousands for visas, only to be left without jobs

Dozens of Chinese migrant workers are being left jobless and out-of-pocket after paying thousands of dollars for work visas, only to be given no work or dismissed by their employer shortly after they arrive in New Zealand.

Most of them have come into the country on the Accredited Employer Work Visa (AEWV) scheme, which started in July last year and was designed to help reduce exploitation. It required companies hiring overseas workers to show paperwork proving they were good migrant employers.

The visa abuse has been noticed by multiple agencies, including Immigration New Zealand (INZ), the Chinese Embassy and several community service groups.

INZ said 63,075 visas were approved under the scheme between August 2022 and May this year.

A group of about 60 workers with similar experiences have banded together through social media and RNZ understands about 100 workers sought help from a prominent Chinese community support organisation in Auckland.

Pastry cook Kesha Kong paid the equivalent of about $14,000 to an agent for her work visa.

In China, she met Johnson Yang who worked for a labour export company in the northern city of Weihai.

Kong said after arriving in Dunedin in late March, she had been given almost no work by her visa-tied accredited employer DJ Hotels Ltd.

"While I was waiting, every day I asked him for work, and he would say there's not much work here, the new store hasn't opened yet so you'll just have to wait."

Kong said she was given only the odd cleaning job by her boss and paid $380 in cash for 25 hours of work. She could barely afford rent and food.

"I waited for two weeks, in between when there was no food to eat I'd go to the back mountain to forage for wild vegetables, and just eat it with instant noodles."

Kong said she was eventually persuaded by her agent to come to Auckland for other work, which she eventually realised would be illegal because her visa was tied to a specific employer.

She had had no income for almost three months and although her former boss told her in May he now had a job for her, she did not believe it was a genuine offer.

DJ Hotels director Liu Jia said he had done nothing wrong, he could not initially give Kong work because of the delays opening a new store and she had no bank account or IRD number.

He admitted that the original plan was for Kong to start work in April, but he did not feel responsible that there was no work for her then.

Liu said he was getting a free recruitment service from the agent, and had nothing to do with the money charged.

Meanwhile Yang said he charged a reasonable fee for the service he provided, but admitted that four of the workers he helped to get accredited employer work visas had lost their jobs.

Another migrant worker was recently dismissed after just one month of working on a construction site.

Sun Fudong was told his skills did not meet expectations and was given four weeks' notice to leave.

The 39-year-old came here to work as a concrete carpenter for accredited employer Beaver Homes Ltd, even though he had no experience.

He claimed both the agent and the employer told him that it did not matter when they interviewed him in August last year, and Sun paid the equivalent of around $16,000 for his visa to the agent in China.

"They said most people coming here will be learning from scratch, they said it's very easy work, and at the interview, the employer didn't say they require carpentry experience," he said.

But the director of the company Huang Lei, denied saying this, and denied getting a cut from the agent.

"He [Sun] complains about how much he paid to the agent, what has this got to do with me?" said Huang, who also claimed Sun did not have the skills for the job.

Huang said he interviewed and hired 20 to 30 overseas workers last year, through working with agents in New Zealand who were in contact with agents in China, and cannot remember the details of what he asked Sun at the interview.

He said he had to pay the costs associated with accreditation, but did not need to pay the agents for recruiting each worker.

Huang said Sun was not open about his lack of experience and felt cheated by both Sun and the agents.

He said he believed he could legally dismiss Sun within the 90-day trial period, even though Sun's contract did not include the trial period clause.

He said he was aware paying for work visas was common among his 20-30 workers hired last year.

"They come here and chat about this with each other, how much they paid to come here, how much the agent charged, how much the flights cost," he said.

Meanwhile, another man said he had paid about $18,000 for a work visa that was tied to a carpentry job that he claimed did not exist.

He said he had not worked a single day since arriving in New Zealand.

His New Zealand agent told him he needed a car, but even after he bought one there was still no job and he had never met his visa accredited employer.

He was in contact with other workers in a similar situation, and said if he could speak English he would have complained to authorities by now.

"If I had the ability, I would've taken this to Immigration New Zealand. If this large group went to immigration to protest, what would be the consequence?

"Has the New Zealand government thought of this? They only think about profiting from these visas, get people over for the economy, have they not thought about the consequences?" he said.

"The immigration officers should be held responsible, this is typical of the lack of regulation. The New Zealand government is responsible for creating this situation. If the companies are legal, then it only shows the lack of regulation," he said.

Authorities and agencies investigating

The Citizens Advisory Bureau was helping eight Chinese migrant workers who had paid large sums for their accredited employer work visas but had been left jobless.

National policy advisor Louise May said the workers were desperate.

"We've been helping arrange food parcels for some of these workers, because they literally don't have any income or food to put on the table."

The bureau, which has some staff and volunteers who spoke mandarin, was helping them get migrant exploitation protection visas - a process May said was too difficult for them to be able to do alone.

"If you don't have any English, you're going to struggle to find your way around the Immigration New Zealand website, and to get the contact details you need.

"And if you call them on the phone, you might fall at the first hurdle when you've got someone giving you pre-recorded options only in English," she said.

May said she wanted to see INZ and Employment New Zealand make themselves more accessible to exploited migrants who did not speak English.

She wanted an end to visas tied to specific employers saying it made people too vulnerable to being ripped off.

RNZ understands that another prominent Chinese Community organisation was supporting at least 100 workers on accredited visas who had been left jobless, but the organisation said it did not want to be named.

INZ's general manager Richard Owen said they were aware of the allegations of fraud and abuse related to the visa and were looking into the matter.

It started auditing accredited employers since April, and has so far completed 257 post-accreditation checks, about 1 percent of all accredited employers in the country.

Around 1000 checks remain underway.

Owen said INZ aimed to check around 15 percent of all accredited employers each year.

The Chinese Embassy also said it had been approached for help by workers with such experiences.

Earlier this month, it issued a warning to Chinese workers considering coming here.

"This year, with the speedy recovery of the bilateral labour cooperation between New Zealand and China, there's been a steady increase in the number of Chinese people coming to work in New Zealand, and with that the increase of overseas employment disputes," the embassy published on its website.

It urged workers to research New Zealand's market needs, the background of the employer, and to carefully assess the risks before moving for a job.

It also urged workers to apply for visas through licensed labour export agents.

'Completely unacceptable' for migrant workers to be left in a precarious position - immigration minister

Minister of Immigration Michael Wood told Morning Report he was "extremely concerned" about migrant workers being exploited under the AEWV scheme.

He said INZ had advised him of "a number of these cases which have come forward".

"They are involved in investigating them at the moment."

It was "completely unacceptable" for migrant workers to come to New Zealand and have undertakings not followed through on, leaving them in a precarious position, Wood said.

The MEPV, which was established last year, meant workers did have some form of "safe harbour visa", which enabled them to stay in New Zealand for a period of time if they had been exploited in such a way, he said.

However, he acknowledged the "key thing" was giving affected workers the confidence to come forward.

"They do sometimes face barriers, they can feel isolated, they can - as we heard - have a language issue.

"So yes, we can establish the systems, [but] we've got to also make sure that through our community networks, through our community leaders, we give these people the confidence that it's OK to come forward if you're being exploited; the system is here to help you in those situations."

Wood said INZ had the capacity to enforce the accreditation commitments businesses made, and employers would be held to account.

He said only a small number of companies had lost their accredited status so far, though he did not have the exact number to hand.