RSE workers being treated ‘like slaves’, Equal Employment Opportunity Commissioner says

Sunday, 11 December 2022

Some RSE employers “frankly, shouldn't have the privilege of having these workers work for them”, says Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern ahead of new wine centre opening.

Workers within the Recognised Seasonal Employer (RSE) scheme are being subjected to conditions akin to modern slavery, the Human Rights Commission has found.

And it was not a case of “a few bad apples” but it was systemic, said Equal Employment Opportunities Commissioner Saunoamaali'i Karanina Sumeo.

“When people are being told – despite being sick – ‘you get in that van, and you go to the field’, that’s forced labour. If you’re living in a regime where you fear for your safety – that is a version of modern day slavery,' she said.

“And when you want to go home because of the way you’ve been mistreated, but you can’t go until you’ve earned your airfare to go home there’s no freedom there, so again it’s like forced labour.”

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The Human Rights Commission says the conditions RSE workers are locked into are similar to slavery. (File photo)

Sumeo led the review, which has found numerous instances of human rights breaches including poor housing conditions, workers being banned from travelling or consuming alcohol in their own time, people not being allowed to make dinner for themselves – so being forced to pay their employer for meals – workers being warned against joining a union, and debts taken out against worker salaries with no explanation of how those debts were incurred.

Some of those breaches were also found by an International Labour Organisation report in June.

As evidence of how much control employers had over the lives of their employees the commission report referred to workers being banned from consuming kava in their own time and another example where a female RSE worker began a sexual relationship during their employment and was then forced to present a negative pregnancy test to their employer in order to avoid being fired.

“When we use the words modern day slavery it’s the chains that are there that you can’t see, but these workers certainly don’t feel free so, for me, slavery exists,” Sumeo said.

The results of the review and a wide-ranging set of recommendations around it were published on Monday morning.

Recommendations included New Zealand ratifying the International Convention on the protection of the rights of all migrant workers, a review of the RSE scheme through a “human rights lens”, allowing RSE workers to switch employers without the permission of the employers they were leaving, clearer employment contracts, better enforcement through the labour inspectorate, limiting the deductions employers could take out of worker wages, more transparency around salary deductions made for things like healthcare, making an independent party responsible for worker pastoral care, and creating a process where workers can freely return home early if they want.

The review was prompted by complaints by RSE workers including one from a worker in Blenheim who reportedly coughed up blood but was told to take a panadol and keep working. When the worker didn’t attend work he allegedly continued to have his pay docked for transportation costs.

Immigration Minister Michael Wood said in a statement on Monday that he welcomed the insights from the report, which would support the Government’s review of the scheme.

“The initial stages of the Government's review of the RSE scheme is now under way. The review will consider feedback from a range of stakeholders, including workers and employers, and apply a human rights lens, focusing on improving the long-term sustainability of the scheme.

“In the meantime, work continues on improving the scheme. Earlier this year, industry and unions worked together to determine the 2022/23 cap on a tripartite basis for the first time, with both employer groups and unions at the table, enabling a discussion about the number of workers and how we can ensure good employment practices.

Equal Employment Opportunities commissioner Saunoamaali’i Karanina Sumeo has taken a close interest in the treatment of RSE workers by New Zealand employers and has been highly critical of what she’s seen.

“Alongside this year’s cap increase, we introduced a new provision that employers will be required to provide a sick leave entitlement to RSE workers, in addition to the pre-existing minimum wage requirement of $22.10, which we introduced during the pandemic. We continue to work urgently with the industry and unions on further short-term improvements and employee safeguards to provide greater protections to workers ahead of the outcome of the review in 2023.”

Sumeo said the current design of the RSE scheme had created the conditions for breaches of the right to equality and freedom, just and favourable conditions at work, an adequate standard of living, freedom of movement, privacy, culture, freedom of association and the right to health.

In the executive summary the commission said it “has repeatedly heard that there are a few bad apples in the industry, however our engagements have revealed what we consider are gaps in the scheme which may enable systemic pattern of human rights abuses throughout the country”.

“It would be great if it was only just one or two locations where that was happening,” Sumeo told Stuff.

“But we’re hearing stories from all over the place so that suggests that there are systemic gaps in the support system that we provide for RSE workers.”

Sumeo said she had witnessed those breaches firsthand by visiting RSE workers, seeing where they lived and conducting interviews with workers in their native languages.

Leina Isno, who has advocated on behalf of workers in parts of the South Island this year, had major concerns about how many were being housed.

“I don’t think any white man would allow their pets, or their dog, to live in such conditions, yet you’re willing to treat those who are non-white to live in extreme conditions like this.'

The report outlined instances of workers being charged $1000 per bedroom to rent accommodation where they were packed in seven people per room. It included one situation where 18 workers were packed into a large hall across nine bunk beds – each paying $160 in rent per week.

It said there were a number of situations where 18 workers shared a single house and where workers were seen “huddled together in the living room where one heater was allowed”.

Isno described similar conditions at houses in Roxburgh where she alleged people were being housed in “terrible” living conditions with 10 people to three or four-bedroom house.

“They’re terrified of even speaking out about it. They hold on to it, they don’t want to complain, and they keep living in the same conditions.”

Leina Isno says many RSE workers are terrified of speaking out about their conditions. (File photo)

Sumeo has seen the quality of RSE worker accommodation herself.

“Actually being on-site, having been in those bedrooms, looked at the thin duvet and the single sheet on the mattress in a place that was actually negative 3 degrees in the morning … seeing the buckets that were trying to catch the water leaking from the ceiling, that’s what made the difference for me.”

In theory, the RSE scheme is one of the most heavily-regulated schemes within the immigration system, but regulators have been unable to detect many of the RSE abuse cases which have made the headlines in recent years.

Sumeo said government officials she spoke to in the course of her review often had a weak understanding of human rights law and seemed to believe migrants had different human rights to New Zealand citizens and permanent residents.

She believed there was some confusion amongst Government officials about the difference between legal rights under immigration law – which were different between migrants and citizens – and human rights which were guaranteed to all people regardless of migration status.

Isno said another problem was that the Labour inspectors involved often did not speak any Pacific languages and didn’t appear to have support people who spoke them either.

Labour inspectors were also rarely of the same ethnicity as the workers involved, which made it difficult for those workers to trust them with their concerns.

“A labour inspector comes to the Central Otago vineyards and guess where they go? They go to the most appropriate house because it is well set up,” Isno said. “They take photographs and they go back and they report on it that the housing and the living conditions are perfect.”

Wood has already announced a Government review of the RSE scheme, however Sumeo said in its current form that review did not meet the threshold of one conducted through a human rights lens.

“We're going to be pushing for a human rights lens to be right in there.

“Because we need it, otherwise what’s going to be different?