Is Tauranga the new slavery pit for NZ and what the hell is WINZ Tauranga doing?

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Sounds like foreign workers are being ripped off and treated like slaves in Tauranga…

…on top of that abuse of labour rights, here’s a question I have put to the Ministry of Social Development this morning about rumours The Daily Blog are hearing out of Tauranga about beneficiaries being threatened with benefit cuts if they don’t sign legally questionable contracts for the very same fruit picking industry that is currently abusing these migrant workers.

The Ministry of Social Development say they will get back to me with an answer. We will be following this allegation closely and will report once the Ministry have responded.

Tick tock, tick tock.

6 COMMENTS

  1. Martyn

    This accords very much with the ideals of National, The Maori Party And Act.

    Deny housing to thousands of New Zealanders.

    Deny Pay to hundreds of shockingly treated Inmmigrants.

    Deny adequate Health Care to Aged, and the Mentally Ill.

    Bill English, Paula and the Maori Party have been working for this “privatisation” for their entire political careers.

    Shame on them

  2. Yes Martyn you are so right,

    Gisborne is now becoming the slave produce producer for the canneries and pack houses of Tauranga not HB as it used to be.

    Remember James Wattie?

    I was living in Napier during the 1950’s when James wattie and his family begun Watties canneries.

    That was a truly Hastings Napier major employer for the whole region and built a strong resilient society that I enjoyed living among.

    But like Tauranga the overseas maggot’s money rich came here and bought the Watties Cannery along with others and now we see foreign labour pouring in to work at the Hastings plant on zero hours that uses overseas tomato puree and cheap imported produce to can at the plant virtually stripping away local products in the way they used to.

    Also Tauranga are taking Gisborne produce at bargain prices to their plants 200kms away, and then can and process with imported cheap labour also, so yes you are so correct Martyn Tauranga are becoming the “new slavery pit for NZ “

  3. This is disgusting.

    But looking at the MSD website, it is all so “positive” what is being done and achieved.
    http://www.msd.govt.nz/about-msd-and-our-work/publications-resources/corporate/regional-plans/2010-12/taranaki/work/

    Those jobs that are offered to Pacific Island people coming here to do seasonal work are justified by the government and the PM claiming that they have “information” from employers saying, the many NZ candidates they have apply for jobs simply fail drug tests.

    So we are given the impression that there are many apparently lazy and drug taking, useless Kiwis, who are not suitable for employment, or not even wanting to work.

    The truth is not matching the government’s claims:
    https://www.msd.govt.nz/documents/about-msd-and-our-work/publications-resources/official-information-responses/290416-beneficiary-statistics.pdf

    Besides of that, when you have virtual slave labour coming here, being exploited like these Fijians, then no Kiwi can compete with such “job seekers”, as even the humble minimum wage will be too little for many to live from, certainly in places like Auckland and Tauranga.

    If employers would pay a proper living wage, then they may get local workers to do the work, but it seems that employers find ways to abuse and exploit the law and its loop holes, to justify getting willing slaves from off-shore.

    There are also many overseas students who can only finance their study through also working at least part time:
    http://nzstudywork.immigration.govt.nz/work-rules-for-students/working-on-a-student-visa/
    https://www.immigration.govt.nz/new-zealand-visas/options/study/working-during-after-your-study/working-on-a-student-visa

    There are enough cases of abuse and exploitation, here is one story:
    http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11760721

    Here is another one:
    http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/82608836/Recruitment-consultant-ripped-off-foreign-workers-in-Christchurch

    Migrants are in some cases even asked to pay for a job, so they can get a working visa:
    http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=10850013

    Officially foreign students are allowed to work up to twenty hours a week. I have met such students though who work more than that, and even through NZ employment or personnel agencies, who simply withhold their pay for the extra hours worked during study periods, and then pay the out during holidays or once their course has finished.

    So there are many levels and areas of virtual slavery, or at least exploitation of workers, who mostly remain silent, as they fear to lose their visa and any prospect to stay in NZ longer, should they reveal what their true circumstances are.

  4. This whole story reminds me of doco I watched recently called “Sugar Slaves”, about the Pacific Islanders kidnapped from their islands, sometimes as young children, and pressganged into work on the sugar plantations in Australia in the late 1800s. They had little choice but to work and take the pittance they were offered, and when their presence in Oz became politically inconvenient, they were forcibly “repatriated” to islands they often barely remembered.

    The kind of indentured labour system that allows Pacifica people to come here with no security is bad for them, and allows unscrupulous bosses to use them to displace kiwi workers, or force them to work under the same exploitative conditions they can impose on the Pacifica workers. In Oz, in keeping with the White Australia policy, the unions showed little solidarity with the Pacific workers in the ways they campaigned on the issue. I desperately hope to see unions here learning from that mistake and campaign for solutions that offer genuine benefits for both kiwi-born workers and immigrant workers in Aotearoa.

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