The real issue is the exploitation of migrant labour by big business
The Labour Party has been trapped into appearing as being opposed to migrant workers in New Zealand.
The debate around the number of ethnic chefs in the country is missing the point.
There are literally hundreds of thousands of unskilled workers in NZ on temporary work visas who will never have a chance to transition to permanent resident status.The total number of temporary work visas issued annually has averaged 166,000 for the last 6 years.
They have been brought into the country on a range of visas. These include student visas, working holiday visas and temporary work visas.
Many of these visas are tied to particular employers. It is a form of indentured labour.
Because they are in a dependent relationship employers can take advantage of them and drive down all wages.
To make progress the labour movement needs to act to protect these workers rather than treat them as somehow the enemy.
If someone spoke up for them, against their exploiters they may be able to get the ear of the migrant community.
It is not just the smaller ethnic restaurants like the Masala chain that has been exposed recently.
While it is simply a fact that the going rate in Chinese restaurants on Dominion Road in Auckland is $8-10 an hour or a $100 a day of whatever length, they are not the most important beneficiaries of this system
It is also the entire dairy industry which claims it can’t survive without recruiting labour from the Philippines – even when dairy prices were at record levels.
The dairy farm owners through their associations are strong advocates of letting the free market work when it is to their advantage. But when it came to having to pay higher market prices to attract labour to work on their farms in Southland they got the government to allow them to recruit in the Philippines instead.
The real beneficiaries of this system of indentured labour are often the biggest companies in New Zealand. We know that all the Hotel chains rely on temporary labour, SkyCity uses them extensively, all the big fast food chains use this labour extensively.
These companies also use migrant labour to reduce the wages of management staff Zealand. In the fast food industry wages for managers have declined 50% in real terms over the last couple of decades. Migrant labour has been used extensively to achieve this result. Management visas were good enough for permanent residence in the past.
The workers are desperately hopeful to be able to transition from a temporary or student visa to permanent residence. There is no automatic right to do so. Only 20% of students are ultimately successful. It is this lottery that motivates the big majority of these workers to come.
We had a fantastic worker at McDonald’s who was on our union bargaining team for the negotiations in 2013. Her story was typical. She was smart. She came on a student visa, worked at McDonald’s, hoped to get a managers job and use that to transition to permanent residence.
She ended up wasting tens of thousands of dollars on courses in New Zealand that she did not actually need to do. She had a computer and management degree from a prestigious Indian university. She paid to repeat her studies essentially to get a visa. Many of the education providers that have been set up in NZ these last few years are taking advantage of these desperate “students” to make a profit.
Even if the courses are NZQA approved and legitimate they would not exist unless the students believed they had at least a chance of transitioning to permanent residence.
She was one of those who failed to get PR for whatever reason. That was a loss to New Zealand. She would have made a fantastic member of our community. She was one of those who spoke up and fought for her co-workers. It is a loss to New Zealand that she didn’t navigate the system.
But the system is a lottery. I think it is designed that way.
The fact that there are hundreds of thousands of workers who are unskilled is proof that we actually need a cross section of labour – not just doctors, or aircraft engineers. But the ones who do come should have the same rights as any other worker to tell their boss to shove and get another job. Without that fundamental right the employee has no power to prevent abuses.
The first step to protect these workers from exploitation is to give them similar legal rights to change employer.
We don’t necessarily need to exclude them from working in New Zealand. We need to give the ones here more rights to stand up for themselves.
The most important issue is ending the visas being tied to particular employers.
They have done this with some construction workers in Christchurch when abusive and exploitative practices were exposed there. That practice needs to be extended to all workers in New Zealand.
It would then be much harder for the bosses to use migrant labour to undermine wages.
A party that stood up for the hundreds of thousands of migrant workers being used and abused by bosses of whatever ethnicity across the country would get a lot of support – including from withing those ethnic communities from those many who worry about the abuses that are occurring.
For more information on the issue see:
Migrant Labour, exploitation and free markets
Migrant worker exploitation
Migrant Workers – their problems are every worker’s problems
The cancer of racism is bad for all of us
Migrant workers ‘used and abused’
Well the governing corporation is not going to afford Labour laws favourable for workers rights to raising their hourly wage,or rights to affiliating to a union,and as we all understand,these workers in most like a large group of Kiwi workers, are union adverse.
Little,even his union history explains where Labour is heading when it comes to workers rights.His union orginisation choses to sit and talk to employers barter off what is now left of working conditions rather than causing disruption to employers profit making workforce.
I agree with much of what is being said, in particular migrants are being exploited and being used to drive wages down.
However I believe the government and voters should be thinking of our own residents first. Shouldn’t kiwis be able to find temporary work in restaurants as they do their degrees?
Are local businesses doing their legal duty under the immigration act to employ a local person first and ONLY if they can’t get a person they recruit overseas.
This is the part of immigration law that has hit the dirt in the last few years, rather than employers bother to pay more, give better conditions and more job security, employees have come to rely on near slave labour from migrants to either earn more profits or to keep their unprofitable business going.
In my view migrants are also paying big money as a bribes and to go betweens, to even get a job in NZ companies. With the amount of problems in the world from air pollution in China, to global warming, over population etc – NZ is a valuable country to gain residency in, and then take the next step get into Australia.
But when 65,000 jobs are being taken per year, thousands of houses being bought by migrants and more and more congestion with more people needing health, education, unemployment benefits and superannuation in the future who is really going to pay this cost and it certainly does not seem to have been accounted for by the National government. Social services budgets in real terms are falling as the population is rising.
Agreed Mike,
Apparently NatZ supporters all support slave labour too.
Gisborne Mayor Meng Foon was seen as running down Winston for his voicing about this issue on TV last night in Gisborne.
Winston on September 9th 2014 said “Gisborne has a standout Mayor with a Chinese background in Meng Foon” because of his strong support for rail.
But something has now changed with Meng Foon now criticising Winston for labour infringements, so is Meng now doing the NatZ job?
In July 2014 he was standing alongside Winston supporting a call for the restoration of Napier Gisborne rail on a Gisborne podium but Meng may be now not supporting that plan, so Politicians will switch allegiances at a heart beat sadly after an election it seems.
http://nzfirst.org.nz/speech/keeping-local-local-government
MBIE (Ministry of Business innovation & Employment) the Nazi style agency is supposed to being overseeing all the labour/employment authorities/agencies in NZ now is strangely mute about this right?
This makes MBIE questionably under suspicion as being in agreement with slavery also now.
Good post Mike!
That bugger’s muddle of a Ministry (the Joyce control project known as MoBIE with a variety of functions completely at odds with each other) is slowly beginning to wake up – and do something about the likes of the Masala chain, with their eyes on other nice little scams that are busy laundering black money.
It is however very easy to scream and moan about all these bloody Chinese and Indians taking all our jobs.
The reality is that if we were to get another PSA invasion (probably due to the under-resourcing or incompetence of MPI), we would be reliant on a large Indian population who hold the expertise to do what is required EXPEDIENTLY. We should not pretend otherwise.
I also know of contractors in the Bay of Plenty that do their utmost to try and employ the indigenous available labour (i.e. the good ones who don’t try pulling scams) without success.
I’m at a disadvantage because I didn’t actually hear or see the ‘Little’ comment, and I don’t trust our MSM to have represented him correctly or in context without applying their own ego-driven, ‘gotcha’ framing. But I do know this: A Chinese restaurant needs Chinese employees, as does an Indian one.
I also know that there is a chronic shortage of truck driver Class 4 licence holders. Unfortunately a lot of this is down to the manner in which we have damn near demolished our railway infrastructure and been captured by the Templeton truck lobbyists.
Two things:
1. There are a number of truck drivers who could take up the slack in the short term but for that bugger’s muddle of a Munstry’s policies – they’ll probably catch up when the trend is reversing – like in about 6-12 months)
2. If we ever wanted to resurrect rail, who better to assist than the Indians who possess and value their rail infrastructure, then possibly the Chinese (the latter, as long as they also start to value human life and safety, and brake pads that are fit for purpose).
Something has gone badly wrong, and I think it’s 7 years of Natzis and cronyism
Btw bomber – you really should get rid of all that thumbs up thumbs down crap – I mean who fucking cares what the Natzis on duty think, and what difference does it all make to a debate? As if I give a flying fuck who ‘likes me’ or otherwise!. You’re buying in to all that complete and utter kaka that the likes of a Farrar rely on.
Did I tell you I have wet dreams thinking about a penguin having sex with some wanna be attention-seeking, once-was a Mediaworks belladonna. Korrrr Blimey! Hot Pants Brutha – Mooove Over! /sarc
Hah. Methinks thou dost protest too much. If you didn’t care, you wouldn’t be asking to get rid of the thumbs.
not at all Waz – I’ll concede they’re better than the need for +100s etc (as seen on TS), however I’d rather read someone’s comments and opinions than see the lazy option of a mouse click (which I have been known to use once or twice)
It’s hard to feel sympathy for the flood of migrants into NZ when you are struggling at the bottom of society, unable to afford even the basics. At the same time you get incredible pressure from the govt to walk into a job and the constant threat of losing even the basic support.
So you can be a do-gooder and argue for fair treatment of mirgants being exploited but I think a lot of kiwis at the bottom will argue “look after our own first.”
It sounds like we need a comprehensive review of immigration systems to get more people who will be an asset in the long term and fewer of those who won’t.
Everyone knows people who ultimately were forced to leave, but who would have made great citizens.
Anecdotally, there are plenty we could do without.
Unsurprisingly the current government puts a premium on dosh, and maybe a bit on “qualifications” real or bogus.
But you don’t go halfway round the world to do exactly what you did at home. Most are dreaming of a new start, so any skills are usually superfluous, while any money-based criteria are the easiest things in the world to fiddle.
And, as this post suggests, there are many other factors that contribute to a successful transplant.
Maybe one path might be to get a certain number of sponsors who would be actually responsible for your good behaviour. Maybe the return ticket could be bought in advance to expedite repatriation in the event of prescriptive failure.
Maybe we need tighter controls on immigration, but way more paths to residency.
The current system of a plurality of enrolled fee-paying student hoping for residency but with little or no chance of success, sounds less like an immigration policy and more like a classic shake-down.
Nick, the whole system is geared towards choosing people who’ll be an asset, sometimes to an absurd degree, remember the recent story of the university professor who could not stay because he had an autistic nephew? Potential immigrants have to undergo a very thorough health check with testing for dozens of diseases that would make them potentially too costly to NZ in the long run.
Of course that’s choosing based on being an asset to the Treasury which is not necessarily the same as an asset to society…
@Astata G – that’s the ‘honest’ migrants not getting in. I’m more concerned about why we need so many ‘chefs’, they are even been baked into trade deals.
By the way, the health check, I happen to know someone who failed the health check and just paid a bribe to the doctor in their country to change the results. Yes, they were not seriously sick, but don’t believe for a second that the system is working stringently.
The same people then got a state house, even though they were on two really good incomes, had kids, bought their parents over and then got sponsored into the UK and left. There elderly parents stayed behind to get residency but actually could not stand it so left too.
But they, their parents and kids can now come back to NZ after spending their working life outside the country and retire here and get Super and health care. Not really fair.
“It sounds like we need a comprehensive review of immigration systems to get more people who will be an asset in the long term and fewer of those who won’t.
Everyone knows people who ultimately were forced to leave, but who would have made great citizens.”……. and that Nick is completely and utterly down to Mr Joyce’s bugger’s muddle of a Munstry (MoBIE) which is based on seeing citizens, immigrants, international students, and anyone else as ‘economic units’ to be played for all they’re worth!.
I mean ….. FFS! It encompasses everything from the old dept of building and housing, to mediation services, to immigration, to the labour inspectorate (dealing with working conditions) etc. If ever there was going to be conflicts of interest – there you have it all in a nutshell (Headed btw by a complete overpaid nut)
You are totally right here Mike. Some types of visas make exploitation extremely easy. I can’t see it changing soon because this is a lot of money coming into NZ. The 80% who’ll end up not getting residence and going home have spent money on course fees and living costs and have provided underpaid labour, usually not using up much in health and other social services. Net gain for the country. If we allow only the 20% who can stay to come, like you say many schools that cater to foreign students will go bankrupt and other small businesses too. I know people who work in such schools. It’s not just the big businesses that would be hit. It’s hard to see a good way out of this. In a way, NZ got addicted to this income stream. Export education is out 3rd largest export after dairy and tourism.
Anyway, I am disgusted by Labour’s attempts at courting the anti-immigrant crowd. The Left should support the classes that have the least power and are exploited, whoever they are. Like you say, our status is a result of a lottery, including the lottery of birth. I’m a NZ citizen who immigrated from a developed country with no problems (got permanent residence visa at once) but I feel a lot of sympathy and solidarity for those who were less lucky. ‘Immigrant’ will remain part of my identity and I am sensitive to what politicians say about immigrants even if people using the word ‘immigrant’ often seem to mean non-white immigrants only.
What you have said here has been going on for years but under the radar of society. Its incredible that our inept media don’t realise it exists or turn a blind eye to it, however I note they are slagging Little off for it so they see the threat his honesty in this area poses for the rich boys.
It is a truly exploitative and a system designed by those who donate to governments such as ours to maximise profit and minimise any worker rights, in fact I would say eliminate them altogether.
And worse it bleeds these migrant workers dry with these so called courses so it’s a brilliant and duplicitous double dip scam.
National know exactly what they are doing with this hidden system within a system, its revolting how they see humans as dumb tradeable commodities. The trouble is with this race to the bottom is the corporations become or are addicts to no better way of treating people to make money and the vast majority of Kiwi’s get screwed whilst the millionaires line their pockets, just like those in National!
It simply must go in a civilised society!
Excellent XRay, spot on.
That’s right.
I know a few dairy farmers who went all ‘ corporate’ about 7 years ago and started calling their farm staff ‘working units’.
Pure arrogance!!
“It is a truly exploitative and a system designed by those who donate to governments such as ours to maximise profit and minimise any worker rights, in fact I would say eliminate them altogether.
And worse it bleeds these migrant workers dry with these so called courses so it’s a brilliant and duplicitous double dip scam.”
AIN’T THAT THE TRUTH. And often it’s the triple dip! There’s money to be made in them there ‘Immigration Consultants’ providing so called services at $hundreds a pop for a visa, or change of visa
Migrants compete with our most vulnerable. It should never have been allowed to become common practice. This corrupt government has so much to answer for. A royal commission on immigration would be a good start – but Gnats must go to prison or it will never get any better.
It suits the agenda of the owners/ advertisers in corporate media to spin attempts at structural critique of the effects of globalization as racism, whether they’re coming from Labour, the Greens, or NZ First. It drives a wedge between the more knee-jerk PC social media warriors and the left parties, and allows NatACT supporters to write them off as hypocrites.
We saw this with the Auckland housing debate, where pointing out the self-evident role of global capital looking for secure investments in rising house prices was spun as “anti-Chinese”. We saw it about a decade ago in the debates over foreign-flagged fishing boats exploiting migrant workers. Now we’re seeing it again in this debate.
I do agree though that the parties need to give some careful thought to how they word their critiques, and how they come across from the point of view of the migrant communities they are trying to defend from exploitation. Sloppy communication around sensitive issues like these is just handing the corporate media a rope to hang them with.
Thank you Mike
I think if this were the conversation Labour was having it wouldn’t have become an issue. I just look at this whole thing and wonder how Little “fell into” the rhetorical trap he apparently did, and I really can’t see how you go there any way but deliberately, and I find that very unacceptable.
@ X-ray and CB – I hope more than just the regulars read your posts – will be an eye opener for newcomers.
Immigrant labour is forcing our people out of the labour market, if you can even get a casual job contract in NZ these days you are fortunate.
Casual student immigrant labour is taking a lot of jobs here in NZ?
Well said Mike. A left position must be to protect and fight for the most vulnerable workers – and that includes immigrants.
Our problem isn’t immigrant workers, it’s our weak industrial laws. John Key hasn’t changed Clark’s Employment Relations Act 2000 for a reason: It’s weak. It’s neoliberal.
The problem with Andrew Little is he keeps framing our problems as being the result of immigration, but the problem is our economic ideology. Housing prices won’t fall to (real) affordable levels if we stop foreign buyers. And poverty wages won’t stop if we control immigrant workers. Why can’t the left get their head around this?
No doubt this horrible “exploitation labour regime” has no doubt been hatched under the NatZ king sized agency “Ministry of Business Innovation & Employment” (MBIE).
Under the careful guidance of MBIE’s arch disciple’s Joyce/Key/English.
These are dangerous individuals each and every one.
yes to all that Mike CB – XRAY and all,.
In our way we are all right in different ways.
Also what hit the RT documentary today was how large corporations are flaunting the labour laws around the globe so Jonkey and his swindlers are nailing us to the wall but allowing this criminal behaviour carry on against workers without any repercussions at all.
https://www.rt.com/shows/documentary/335477-chip-labor-temporary-job/
Cheap foreign labour is destroying both unions and workers rights around the world.
Now workers are being told, take worse conditions and lower pay or we will shut the factory and take it off shore, or the company are bringing the cheap workers in who compete for the job and will work for lower wages.
In both cases local workers are forced into lower wages and unions find it difficult to bargain with a plant shut down.
Immigration is supposed to be working to bring in skills NOT found in NZ, now somehow under National it is used to bring cheap people in.
In addition, what is this weird focus on having so many migrant chefs coming into NZ? It is even in trade deals. I’m reminded of the mafia movies who operate from restaurant as fronts for money laundering and criminal activity. Might be a co incidence, but really when you consider the rents around Queen ST being $250,000 per annum it is so hard to work out how restaurants that sells $10 dishes and are often empty has enough funds to afford it. Are migrants really that bad at business?? I guess the losses can be claimed by the business owner, win win?
Foreign embassies are not adverse to using diplomatic privileges to bring in housekeeping labour from undeveloped countries and exploiting them by paying slave labour rates. The New Zealand Labour Department knows this and does nothing.
nzers need to wake up to reality, if we let this shit continue we will all be eating Chinese takeaways, rooting whores and smoking P. remember we grow the best lamb in the world, how about a few more kiwi lamb roast takeaways , run by nz chefs, owned by nzders, not these fucking imports who do not assimilate into nz culture. just use their “food outlets” as a front to sell P, prostitution, organised crime, immigration scams, loading their shit food with MSG slowly poisoning the populations minds and bodies. Chinese food is the most easiest food to cook in the world and with thousands of fucking “Chinese cooks” in the country already, do we really need any more.