New ways to exploit migrant workers down on the farm
Bernards Hickey notes new ways to exploit migrant workers down on the farm...
- Immigration Minister Erica Stanford has announced² unspecified changes to the Recognised Seasonal Employer (RSE) scheme for temporary fruit pickers from the Pacific that she said would ‘simplify’ the scheme.
- HortNZ said³ yesterday it was confident of doubling annual exports to $20 billion as it welcomed the changes, which Immigration NZannounced⁴ would include an employer accreditation scheme that would allow accredited employers to not have to prove they had tried to find local workers.
…this after the latest immigration scam exploiting workers is exposed…
Cases of the most egregious migrant exploitation are now emerging in dribs and drabs through decisions by the Employment Relations Authority, indicating a tip of iceberg that should shame the nation and endanger our exports to countries that monitor the use of slave labour. But it doesn’t, and hasn’t. Yet.
This week, the ERA ruled1 the owner of Four Square Martina in Thames, Jaswinder Singh, had to pay $44,000 in penalties after he charged two workers from India $60,000 each for jobs at the supermarket in the Foodstuffs North Island Co-operative. The workers were repaid their $60,000 each after the Labour Inspectorate got involved. Each worker will receive $1,000 of the penalties. Foodstuffs has said Four Square Martina is no longer part of the Co-operative, but it’s not clear if it has been ‘de-bannered’ from using the Four Square signage because of the abuse. Singh is still running the store.
This case is the latest showing the endemic abuse and the small fines and sanctions being applied.
…the NZ economy is built upon 5 pillars:
- Addiction to low wage economy
- Polluting the environment without restriction
- Exploiting migrant labour
- Stealing Māori land and NEVER paying it back
- Selling each other houses and pretending that is wealth
…domestic workers look at migrant workers with suspicion that they are undercutting their wages and conditions and the Political Right exploit that fear into xenophobia.
The solution is universal union membership for ALL migrant workers to ensure they are properly paid and their conditions are not weaker than domestic workers.
I have seen RSE compounds, and I wouldn’t keep animals there. RSE workers are treated little better than indentured labour and that should be a national shame but because the Agricultural sector have total political protection, their slavery is legally allowed to continue and be expanded.
The white man marches on.
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When Erica Stanford says she has simplified things you can be sure that it will be for employers to exploit their workers and not the start of an age of prosperity for low skilled workers. I suspect that even skilled workers will be asked to compete with overseas qualified workers at lower rates in the future as any wealth left is concentrated among those pulling the levers of power.
The trouble with people talking about immigration policy in this country is that perceived racism speaks louder than economic facts.
Both the leftish Bernard Hickey on substack and the alt right Rick the Anglo Saxon on youtube are pointing out the same thing. We have high unemployment and the govt is all about over-immigration. Bernard Hickey is pointing out farmers are exploiting foreign farm workers and Rick the Anglo Saxon is pointing out immigrant employers are running indentured and slave labour checkout operator schemes.
Its simply not believable that none of the hundreds of thousands of unemployed kiwis cannot milk cows or scan a barcodes on a boxes of beer in liquor stores.
Luxon’s Claytons India FTA is essentially a migration policy when you’re not having a migration policy.