According to the Press ("Wine growers fear shortage of workers," Saturday, March 15) Marlborough's wine growers say their may be a significant shortage of workers for this winter's pruning season due to bureaucratic issues with the government's new Recognised Seasonal Employer Scheme.
Under the new scheme Malborough growers are entitled to employ workers from the Pacific Islands, who are pre-selected by the department of labour, to fill seasonal labour shortages. The growers claim it is taking too much time to get the workers processed and in the meantime experienced workers from other countries are having to leave as their visas run out.
Whether the claims about problems with the scheme are accurate or not I don't know, but the viticulture industry doesn't seem very clear about where these "experienced workers" are coming from, or what sort of a risk they pose in terms of overstaying.
In a previous Press article it was stated experienced workers had came from countries such as "Indonesia, Thailand and the Czech Republic," which seems an odd assortment of countries (I would have thought it unlikely many workers from a country like the Czech Republic would bother to take up seasonal work in New Zealand when the wages here are likely to be only marginally higher than at home).
On the other hand, its obvious that workers from Indonesia would be keen on working for New Zealand wages as wage rates in Indonesia are presently very low. Among the numerous problems with employing workers from very poor countries is they are likely to work at much lower rates than locals and are much more likely to overstay than workers from middle income countries.
Arguably there is a reasonable case for allowing experienced workers from middle income countries to come back for a couple of seasons, but this should not be extended to workers from third world countries who pose a much higher risk of overstaying. This seems like a reasonable compromise situation which would help improve the image of the rural sector in terms of immigration issues. It's also important to take into account issues of cultural compatibility in the event workers do overstay and end up living among the local population. In this regard workers from impoverished Muslim countries pose the greatest risk at present.
In my view, prospective workers from pro-western regions such as Eastern Europe, and middle-income South American countries, such as Uruguay and Argentina, should get preference over those from third world nations like Indonesia.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
This problem also affected the summerfruit growers after the Government prevented the usual flow of Europeans this summer. Young Germans and Czechs already in NZ could not get work permits and left. Larger employers were affected also. Some of them may have been more involved in the Government's Seasonal scheme and naively believed that a new paternal Pacific controlled-labour supply (pocket money only for the workers, the rest sent home) would supply every need.
Young Czechs do work (and work well) in NZ horticulture. Young Germans, who would not work in horticulture at home, respect what they can earn here. Clean up illegal Asian seasonal worker immigration by all means. But why outlaw those who came here legally, who now simply will not come? The Pacific scheme is providing some fine men to work our vineyards and orchards (I haven't seen any women) but it did not need to be introduced with compulsion and exclusion of others and high-handed management. Presumably everyone realises that the successful Pacific scheme (minus Fijians, of course) confers UN kudos on our Government.
If people form first world countries are willing to do seasonal labour work for whatever reason, great.
In previous posts I'd mentioned my support for extending visas for packpackers etc.
My main concern is with people from third world countries coming in.
If it gets to the stage where we have to rely on workers who come from countries where the average wage is 50 cents an hour, then as a cultural conservative I'd rather the industry moved offshore.
Post a Comment