Freebie labour and the story of Robinwood Farm

Thursday, 3 May 2018

In the first part of a Stuff series on the exploitation of volunteer labour reporter AMANDA CROPP looks at the case against Robinwood Farm.

Robinwood Farm's Facebook page sold the property to thousands of young travellers as an organic haven where they could work in exchange for a free bed.

In reality it was a squalid dump.

Mongolian backpacker Huikun​ Quan​ had only been in New Zealand a few days when he arrived at Robinwood hoping to improve his limited English and earn his keep as a Wwoofer (Willing Worker on Organic Farms).

Fresh out of a broken relationship, but reluctant to go back home and live with her parents, Kiwi Rachael Mcgowan accepted a job as 'head honcho' at the Old Tai Taitapu Rd property on the outskirts of Christchurch 

**READ MORE:

* Travellers exploited through volunteer scheme fed from supermarket waste bins

* WWOOFing scheme rejects a host a day seeking travellers as cheap labour

* Authorities ramp up efforts to stamp out freebie labour in the backpacker industry

* Blatant and endemic: Illegal 'volunteer' labour rife in NZ's accommodation industry

* MBIE investigates exploitation of backpacker labour in beds for wages deals

* Support for MBIE probe into alleged exploitation of backpacker workers

* Freebie labour has fish hooks for the tourism industry**

Both the 20-somethings quit after a month, fed up with working long days for a pittance.

Even allowing for the fact they received board and lodging in return for feeding animals, renovating a Karamea holiday home, and running associated firewood and gardening businesses, their pay of $120 a week was well below minimum wage.

Robinwood is an extreme example of New Zealand businesses using young travellers as a source of cheap labour, but it is far from alone. 

Inspectorate manager for the hospitality sector David Milne says a position is a job if there is an expectation of remuneration for labour – regardless of whether it's cash or accommodation – and hosts benefit financially from the work done.

Normal employment conditions apply, which means providing a written contract, paying minimum wage, holiday pay and PAYE.

So far labour inspectors have targeted backpacker hostels, where Milne says freebie labour practices are endemic, and they will not hesitate to act against anyone found 'cynically' profiting from volunteers the way Robinwood Farms did.

He says they have other accommodation and hospitality businesses in their sights, and volunteering is also appearing in retail and professional-type occupations. 

'No sector seems to be immune.'

Inside Robinwood Farm

McGowan and Huikun were awarded about $2600 in wages and holiday pay by the Employment Relations Authority (ERA) which is yet to determine a penalty for their host Julia Osselton and her companies, Robinwood Farms and Karamea Holiday Homes.

The latter is in liquidation owing $130,000, just over half of which is owed to unsecured creditors including a Spanish worker awarded about $20,000 in another ERA case, and people who paid deposits to hire the Karamea property.

The liquidators' report says the holiday home company owns a property valued at $300,000, so it would appear creditors will be paid.

According to the Labour Inspectorate, Osselton told them 1000 travellers a year passed through her business which centred on the Tai Tapu farm.

Witness statements presented to the ERA described 'inhumane' living conditions – being fed food collected from supermarket waste bins and spoilt meat, and sleeping accommodation in a small storage room lacking proper ventilation or heating.

The ERA declined a Stuff request for access to the statements on a number of grounds, including the fact that some of them were not formally put before the authority and were therefore untested.

​Huikun and Mcgowan said they landed jobs with Osselton through an advertisement on HelpX, a website listing 5500 New Zealand hosts offering work-for-bed deals.

They were not to know that Wwoof New Zealand, which promotes living and learning on organic farms, had already rejected Robinwood because it did not meet their criteria.

Huikun was shocked by the dirty state of the farm house where up to eight Whoofers lived in two dorm rooms upstairs, and on a trip to Karamea to work on Osselton's holiday home rental, he ended up sleeping the night in a shed full of junk. 

'I had only been in New Zealand for 10 days and I thought maybe farmers lived like that, I had no idea.' 

The food was basic with lots of potatoes, bread, and pasta. Meat was a luxury, but he was never fed supermarket waste – that was collected for the farm pigs.  

When Stuff visited Robinwood in January we found an unkempt house surrounded by long grass near a pig enclosure that was a sea of mud.

The cobweb-covered door knocker fell apart when touched, a broken window was covered in paper and a disused barbecue had bird droppings on the rusty grill plate.

When we knocked on the kitchen door Osselton retreated to the end of the hallway and refused to answer questions.

In 2007 Osselton, then a 41-year-old MBA student, made the news when she survived largely unscathed after her car plunged 60 metres over Karamea Bluff on a camping holiday.

Until late last year she was the health and safety manager for a Christchurch business specialising in asbestos removal and methamphetamine decontamination.

Her profile on the company website described her as a 'passionate' about safety and a 'valuable asset to the team.'

Mcgowan says Osselton worked long hours, was rarely present on the property and sent her lists of daily tasks via text messages.

As 'head honcho' Mcgowan supervised the other workers and transported them to work sites, and the long days saw her fall asleep at the wheel on several occasions.

'Sometimes people would only stay a day, they probably rocked up and thought 'oh crap'; or they decided to stick with it for a bit while they got their bearings.

'A few people would complain now and again, it was all very subtle, but no one charged around raging about it.'

However, negative comments posted on social media indicated some workers' experiences at Robinwood bore little resemblance to the farm's now defunct Facebook page which described cheery fireside sessions in the lounge where Whoofers relaxed over wine after doing a few daily chores.

A travel blog written by a French woman complained of sleeping in a dorm which was a chilly 9 degrees celsius in winter. 

Russian Stanislav said he was grateful to Julia for giving him shelter, but she was almost never there and the house was 'totally destroyed inside'. 

An online review by a worker who left after five days because of unfair working conditions was scathing. 

'Treat your workers with respect and realise that 20 hours of work a week is a fair exchange for food and accommodation. Anything more should be paid.'

Outing the exploiters 

Huikun says Osselton told her she had been running the operation for five or six years, and is astounded she got away with it for so long.

She only popped up on the Labour Inspectorate's radar after a client complained the young women landscaping her property weren't being properly paid.

When challenged, Osselton claimed they were volunteers but her website advertisement suggested otherwise and sparked a full scale investigation by the Labour Inspectorate. 

Three New Zealand websites offering labour exchange opportunities list more than 8000 hosts between them and for Milne such platforms are a valuable source of intelligence.

'They're pretty much flashing a red light for us as to where we need to go,' and he says many freebie-labour advertisements 'fly close to the wind' by offering lodging in return for set hours, specific duties and fixed terms.

'You could argue they're jobs that should attract normal employment conditions.'

In mid April backpackerboard.co.nz listed 40 unpaid labour-for-bed positions.

A general labourer with power tools could earn free accommodation and meals by helping renovate a house in the Manawatu for five to seven hours daily for at least a month.

A farm park wanted a 'keen, fit, reasonably strong person' to work four hours a day looking after animals, painting and gardening in return for house bus accommodation. 'You don't get paid in $$ but the experience is priceless,' it said.

Some hosts are wising up.

In January a farm asked helpers to work the first two weeks for free, gradually increasing to $100 a week in the hand after a month. It has since shifted to offering an hourly rate of $18 and charging $39 a night for accommodation.

Sorting the good from the bad

French visitor Roxane​ Elric's​ only bad experience with HelpX was in Cambodia where she ushered in a cinema and she enjoyed her New Zealand placements.

'All the experiences we've had here were fair.'

She and her partner Bastien Amasse picked olives, chopped firewood, fed animals, cared for children and did house sitting.  

​Friends were less fortunate and an Auckland property advertised as organic, was a filthy mess. 

'They had just arrived in the country so they stayed for a week, but they said it was tough.'

Helpers are sometimes reluctant to post negative feedback in case they are perceived as whingers or ungrateful, and it affects their chances of future placements.

Elric says they also don't like to criticise for fear hosts will respond in kind, 'even if it's a lie, so other people don't want to host you'.

In some countries Wwoof groups visit each host before they are accepted, some require further checks or references, and others rely solely on user feedback, which largely appears to be the case here. 

A spokesman for Workaway says exchanges are primarily cultural and learning opportunities.

Hosts are removed from the website if there is a serious complaint about them, but that is rare, and those running for-profit businesses are told to make sure they offer monetary payment on top of accommodation so that the total at least equals the minimum wage.

Wwoof New Zealand is a business run out of Nelson by Jane and Andrew Strange. They currently have 10,260 worker members and 2126 hosts who pay an annual fee of $40. 

Their website says the organisation does not do criminal  background checks and users are responsible for determining the suitability of those they interact with. 

They are urged to report misconduct such as theft or violent or sexually inappropriate behaviour, and membership is cancelled where complaints justify it. 

Strange says about 15 per cent of host applications are rejected because it is obvious they are looking for an employee, and hosts are encouraged to  speak up on behalf of workers who reveal exploitation or abuse in previous placements.

'They have good antennae for what's appropriate and what's not.' 

Milne believes operators of bed for labour exchange websites have a moral responsibility to step back and think carefully about whether they should be posting advertisements for illegal volunteer work. 

Given the reluctance of young travellers to complain to authorities, he would also like Kiwis to follow the example of the Robinwood client who spoke up when she suspected an injustice. 

'Unless we hear about these cases we can't act on them.'

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