‘I felt ashamed’: Workers paying $175 for ‘overcrowded’ hostel rooms
RSE workers are living up to 10 to a room at a backpackers hostel near Te Puke, for which they pay $175 a week. A former pastor now working in the kiwifruit industry is speaking out about what he believes are unacceptable conditions. TONY WALL reports.
I love the immediate response from the exploiters…
Kura Poulava, EastPack’s head of human relations, says it’s “unfortunate that these particular RSEs feel that they cannot take their complaints to us directly” as they have a pastoral care team that can address concerns.
…listen to the glorious menace in that!
Talking to locals who are working in the Kiwifruit packing sheds, the RSE workers are pushing domestic workers out of the work force right when unemployment is biting.
The RSE workers are brought in under the false narrative that locals won’t do the back breaking work when the reality is that locals proper wages and conditions.
The back-breaking work has now manifested into packing, quality control, box making and driving – all skills that are providable by the domestic market, but are being imported as part of the migrant worker exploitation.
The low wages are then price gouged by the exploiters and they are forced to live like Indentured Servants living in porpoise built pens next to their work.
Their boss is also their landlord who is also price gouging them and bullying them into never leaving the work pens.
- NZ is built upon a few sacred neoliberal pillars.
- Steal Māori land and never pay the true value back.
- Sell houses to one another and pretend that is welath
- Whatever the economic problem, the solution is more cows
- Exploiting migrant labour to ensure a low wage economy can never be challenged by weakened Unions
The solution to exploited migrant workers is universal union membership as soon as they come across the border and their rights enforced by the Union.
That way the domestic workers know they aren’t being undermined and the migrant workers aren’t being exploited.
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There should be an imeadiate stop to allowing these slaves to come to NZ untill every able kiwi is employed .The government is so stupid to continue to allow this while paying out millions to unemployed .The biggest problem is the lack of housing and these jobs are short term so people can not just pack up the family and move from Wellington to Katikati to work for one of Luxons mates .To have people living like animals crammed into small rooms is a disgrace and should be clamped down on .Because these people are being exploited by their own country men is another disgrace as there is no room in NZ for in human practice from other countries .However the COC is sponsored by the big employers so a blind eye is turned .
A few years ago I lived abroad. Returning to Aotearoa I though it would be handy to have a job lined up and knowing the Kiwifruit harvest was near, I e-mailed a few contractors to have a job ready. They were enthusiastic in their welcome.
The first was in Katikati. I called him( strong European accent replied). He came to where I was staying, I came out to meet him. He skidded to a halt.
‘You are not Chinese!’ he exclaimed.
” No,’ said I, ” I live in the Bay of Plenty (Opotiki actually).’
‘But you e-mailed me from China.’
‘Yes, I worked there. But I came home’.
He was already getting back into his car.
‘I cannot give you a job.’
‘Why not?’ too late, door closed and he was off.
This was not an isolated case. I had the same experience with other fruit picking contractors, two of which admitted they do not hire Kiwis because we know what minimum wages should be.
The curious thing is that Packhouses and orchardists will complain forever about the turnover of the staff they recruit, apparently without realising that people are just using them as a stepping stone to better jobs and pay.
This is a rare light shone on a disgusting rip off industry, where the workers are paid bare minimum, often terrorised by their ‘master’ who may be a relative, and then forced to pay an outrageous rent for sub human accommodation, to the growers who are also effectively Dicksonian slum lords.
This has been the case for decades but it has just got worse with the hot bunking becoming acceptable and excused as a way of like Pacific people are used to.
Indentured slavery.
It is great to support the Pacific nations with work here but it must be regulated and unionising the workers is a start but what is happening is basically human rights violations so let’s start with regulating the industry with the provisions of the law for working conditions, minimum wages, housing and rents. How can it be legal to charge $175 per week for those living conditions. Sickening.
Found work in a packhouse during the initial uncertainty of covid lockdowns, after a hurried retreat from offshore. Lucky to have the ‘essential work’ for sure. I witnessed firsthand packhouse staff/management walking the floor collecting rent (in cash!!) from the RSE workers for onsite accomodation. If it walks like an exploiter and quacks like an exploiter…
The charitable explanation may be RSE workers’ lower digital literacy, but I’m sure the lack recorded deductions on payslips are just an incidental benefit…
I’m surprised (how good the conditions appear to be in this case).
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