Labor
Pick Of The Crop
New Zealand Opens Up To Seasonal Workers
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| Ni-Vanuatu workers and hosting farmer in central Otago, New Zealand. |
That scheme and a World Bank review of the program is being keenly followed by the new Australian government of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, which is trying to decide whether Australia should create its own seasonal worker program.
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Up to 5,000 people from the Pacific can enter New Zealand each year as seasonal workers, for up to seven months over an 11-month period. The program began with five “kickstart” countries (Vanuatu, Tonga, Samoa, Kiribati and Tuvalu), but will expand over time to 11 Forum nations. Fiji was removed from the scheme following the December 2006 coup.
By the start of the RSE program last April, over 4,500 Tongans had applied for work. Two-hundred and seventy Tongan workers traveled to New Zealand in 2007, together with 153 from Samoa. By January 2008, a further 4,568 RSE workers had been approved to be recruited, with 968 RSE work visas approved.
In Tonga, Ministry of Labor officials work with local committees of district officers, church ministers and other community leaders to select applicants. In contrast, Vanuatu has relied on private sector recruiters who contract with New Zealand employers.
The first group of 45 workers from Vanuatu traveled to the Central Otago region in a successful pilot program, picking grapes between January and May 2000 – by the end of the year, 246 ni-Vanuatu had arrived in New Zealand under the RSE scheme.
Recruiter Dick Eade from Manpower Associates Vanuatu currently has 70 ni-Vanuatu workers with three employers in New Zealand, picking apples and strawberries. He says a key aim of seasonal work is to encourage more remittances to flow into rural communities, to fund children’s education, improve housing or start small businesses. Even after deducting costs for travel, accommodation and food, Eade says workers can still make a good income: “For five months work, we’ve had workers clearing up to 500,000 vatu – that’s about A$5,500 (US $4,813).”
Vanuatu’s Interior Minister Joe Natuman estimates that workers will bring home over 600 million vatu (US$6 million) in remittances by May 2008. These financial benefits are significant when the minimum wage for an agricultural worker in Vanuatu is equivalent to A$300 (US$262) a year.
But schemes must be carefully designed to address the social costs when villagers move overseas, such as family separation, impacts on children’s welfare and extra burdens for the elderly left in the village. There is also potential for breaches of labor rights as well as hazards such as substance abuse or HIV-AIDS, requiring pre-departure orientation and support services.
Notes Eade: “We prefer to send workers for three to five months rather than the seven months that New Zealand allows. For them to be away from family for a few months is no great drama, but for longer there are strains. The kids are on the phone saying ‘when are you coming home?’, so there can be difficulties in the village with prolonged absence.”
The RSE scheme involves a range of measures to address concerns raised by critics of guest worker programs, such as the potential for overstaying, the exploitation of overseas employees or the undercutting of wages and job opportunities for local workers. The New Zealand Department of Labor is employing new immigration officers and labor inspectors dedicated to this scheme, to monitor wages, conditions and housing.
However, some Tongan church leaders have criticized the lack of support services, arguing that seasonal workers need more community and pastoral care. They cite reports of drunkenness due to boredom and isolation, with one Tongan worker facing charges in New Zealand for an alleged sexual assault. Unions and community leaders have advocated greater controls like licensing of recruiting agents, standard contracts and greater involvement of Pacific unions in pre-departure training.
Another problem is the high cost of transmitting remittances: companies such as Western Union charge a fee of A$20 (US$17.5) to transfer an amount of up to A$75 (US$65) from Australia to Fiji, or A$22 (US$19) for amounts between A$75 and A$150. World Bank economist Manjula Luthria says “the cost of transmitting remittances is higher in the Pacific than anywhere else in the world.”
The World Bank is currently working with Pacific countries to address weakness in their programs for seasonal workers. Luthria says, “I’m very optimistic about the potential for these types of programs. We’ve established an institutional development fund for the five kickstart countries to draw on, we’re working with regulators and private sector organizations on the costs of transfers, and promoting dialogue with other labor exporting countries like the Philippines.”
Unlike New Zealand, the Howard government in Australia refused to create a seasonal work scheme, preferring permanent settlement of high-skilled migrants. But the election of a Labor government last November has opened the way for a review of Australian government policies towards the islands region.
The new parliamentary secretary for the Pacific Islands, Tasmanian MP Duncan Kerr, together with long-serving politician Bob McMullan as parliamentary secretary for international development, has said that they’ll be looking to promote new economic opportunities for the region. Without committing to a change of policy on seasonal workers, McMullan has pledged that “an incoming Labor government will closely monitor New Zealand’s experience.”
But Government sources have told Australian media that it would need to rewrite industrial relations laws to guarantee it could not undermine local jobs first.
Pacific governments are continuing to pressure Australia to open up its labor market. In January, Nauru’s Foreign Minister Kieren Keke asked Canberra to allow Nauruan seasonal workers into Australia to offset job losses resulting from the closure of the “Pacific Solution” asylum seeker detention center on Nauru, which is being wound down by the Rudd government.
Labor’s Bob McMullan has argued that the Australian labor movement has been hesitant to endorse seasonal work programs because the Howard government’s workplace laws did not offer enough protection for vulnerable workers. Now that New Zealand’s Department of Labor has launched a major evaluation of the RSE scheme, the process will be closely monitored in Canberra, as an ageing population in Australia forces the issue of regional labor mobility onto the agenda.
