Islands Business - Business: RSE A SUCCESS BUT FEW PROBLEMS TO BE IRONED OUT

NZ govt taking measures to get around them

Dev Nadkarni
The New Zealand government’s Registered Employers Scheme (RSE) for Pacific Islands workers to work on New Zealand farms seasonally has by and large been received well both by farmers in New Zealand and the five Pacific Islands governments that have been part of the scheme.

Happy to be employed... Islanders picking fruit in New Zealand.

The scheme, which concluded its first year of operation, saw 110 employers employing over 5000 seasonal workers from Samoa, Tonga, Vanuatu, Kiribati and Tuvalu, with Solomon Islands being added recently.

New Zealand Government’s Department of Labour sources said that in September 2007 to June this year, workers had cleared an average of close to NZ$6000 (after net costs of living) in the few months that they spent working in the country. This has added considerably to the Pacific islands countries remittance incomes over the past twelve months.

The success of the scheme led the Australian government to announce a similar “guest worker scheme” for about 2500 Pacific islanders from three countries—Kiribati, Tonga and the Solomon Islands (a representative sample from Micronesia, Polynesia and Melanesia at the Pacific Islands Forum in Niue late last month.

Australia later added Papua New Guinea to the inaugural scheme after strong protests from the country at being excluded.

Despite the general success of the scheme, there have been reports in the New Zealand media in recent months that have raised concerns on some aspects of the scheme.

The most recent of these is the one concerning workers from Kiribati who, news reports said, were sent back to their home country prematurely and without their full dues paid to them.

Earlier on there have also been reports criticising the living conditions of the workers alluding to the fact that too many of them were billeted together in less than optimal conditions. On a couple of occasions, some workers were sent back to their home countries on disciplinary grounds.

This writer referred questions regarding these reported problems to the Government of New Zealand’s Department of Labour.

“[The] RSE has worked very well for the large majority of employers and employees. However, it hasn’t worked for everyone. This is the first full season, so all parties—employers, employees, Pacific states and New Zealand government agencies—are still learning how to get the best from the scheme.

The department is confident RSE will work even better in future,” Leslie Haines, Group Manager of Immigration Policy at the Department of Labour said.

Responding to queries on the incident about the workers from Kiribati, Haines said, “The major reason why the workers from Kiribati were sent home earlier than expected was because vine pruning in Marlborough was ahead of schedule this season.

“These Kiribati workers were the ones who transferred from Fore Vintage Contracting in June. While there had been poor relations between them and Fore Vintage, the relationships between them and their subsequent employers were much better. Most, but not all, of these employees met the standard required by their new employers. Many returned home with promises of work for next season.”

Haines said that cases of workers being sent back was “not widespread” and those that indeed been asked to go was because of misbehaviour and “for not being productive even after training and being given the time to learn the job properly.”

Answering questions on reports of poor living conditions for the workers in some parts of New Zealand, Haines said the department investigated all complaints it received. It has six labour inspectors dedicated to RSE nation-wide who attend to these complaints.

“Department inspectors visit all accommodation provided by RSE employers. An audit conducted in June showed that all required facilities were provided in 95% of the accommodation units and in the remaining units there were minor issues with some of the facilities.”

According to Haines there has only been one significant complaint about overcrowding.

“This was in Marlborough, where a contractor had more than 20 people living in one house. The department issued an improvement notice on the employer. However, the relationship between the employer and the workers had broken down and the department arranged for the workers to go to work for other contractors in the district,” he said.

There have also been complaints about pay discrepancies and Haines said the department has investigated these as well.

“Most of them relate to payslips that were not clear enough on the deductions taken from pay. It is also important for employers to explain the difference between the hourly pay rates and piece rates common in horticulture.

“We are taking a ‘continuous improvement approach’ to the RSE implementation. The department has hosted a number of forums with industry representatives, employers, government officials and delegates from the ‘kick-start’ states of Samoa, Tonga, Kiribati, Tuvalu and Vanuatu,” he said.

Some of these measures include: reviewing the Inter-Agency Understanding between the department and the equivalent agencies in the kick-start states; improving pre-departure orientation provided as part of the facilitative measures with kick-start states; working with employers and industry to disseminate good practice information and improve the pastoral care provided to workers (a best practice guide to pastoral care is being written) and better forecasting of labour supply and demand.

Asked if there were any problems involving third parties involved in the scheme such as recruitment agents back in the islands, Haines said, “Almost three quarters of RSE workers come from the ‘kick-start’ states, where the governments are closely involved in identifying workers and preparing them for their time in New Zealand. Work is underway with Pacific governments to improve the pre-departure orientation provided to Pacific workers.” But many employers visited the Pacific to recruit workers directly, he added.

The Prime Minister of Tuvalu, Apisai Ielemia, who was passing through Auckland after attending the Forum meeting in Niue said he was happy with the RSE scheme and what it had done for Tuvalu’s small economy. But he expressed concern at the reported Kiribati incident.

“I think it has to do with cultural factors,” he said. “When Pacific Islands workers go abroad for the first time they have to be dealt with greater patience and understanding because their apparent unwillingness to work or their different approach to work as seen by New Zealand employers is not intentional because they are not used to that system. A more understanding approach is called for,” he added.