Wanna Pick Fruit? $22+ an Hour

In Australia, the federal and state government is encouraging locals on welfare to do fruit picking, with limited success.
 
Are the Maori well integrated in society, or do they mostly live in their own communities?
I am not sure about their tattoo culture. I've heard (granted, I haven't verified this at all) that covering your body with permanent tattoos has various negative somatic and psychosomatic effects.
 
Kyriakos said:
Are the Maori well integrated in society, or do they mostly live in their own communities?
I am not sure about their tattoo culture. I've heard (granted, I haven't verified this at all) that covering your body with permanent tattoos has various negative somatic and psychosomatic effects.
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Reasonably well. Where I live they're pretty much the same as anyone else.

Up north things are a bit different. Apparently things are bad in some towns,poverty etc.

South Island small towns don't seem to have the same problems.

Broadly speaking there's 3 types of Maori.
 
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Gorbles said:
The money was made available. People aren't being squeezed here. The money is there, and seemingly relatively equally so. The money was made available and it completely changes the landscape of the problem faced. It's no longer a race to the bottom. Which is why I was asking why it took til now for something like that to happen?
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Because they can't import migrants anymore and as such can't race to the bottom anymore ? That's pretty much what Zardnaar explained in the very first post.
 
Akka said:
Because they can't import migrants anymore and as such can't race to the bottom anymore ? That's pretty much what Zardnaar explained in the very first post.
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They're literally importing seasonal workers, as per the very first post. The only difference is the government is doing it, and loopholes are not (apparently) being abused.

Sounds to me like the problem is abusing the loopholes, and not migration itself.
 
Gorbles said:
They're literally importing seasonal workers, as per the very first post. The only difference is the government is doing it, and loopholes are not (apparently) being abused.

Sounds to me like the problem is abusing the loopholes, and not migration itself.
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They can't really police the loopholes.

The way it works is they just have to provide evidence they're advertised for workers and can't get them.

So they make the ads sound unattractive or put them in places kiwis won't see them or point blank not hire kiwis.

Once they have the paperwork they just submit it and some bureaucrat isn't going to go hundreds of kilometres to check on every single application.

Alot of things here rely on honesty and good faith. I had friends severely rip the government off back in the 90s.

They probably genuinely can't get enough workers but they've also been boosting production on the assumption they can get such workers.

Think they cahnged the rules 2003, I did it 2000/2001 along with some friends and my now wife.

I wasn't very good at it but still got 25-50% more than minimum wage plus free accommodation. And could pick and choose my hours.

One guy was complaining he couldn't get his Thai workers. 12 hour days 6 days a weak minimum wage and they charged the workers for accommodation.

There's stories you can get $300-400 a day doing cherries but that's best case scenario with the best pickers. Think they're offering $25 an hour this year with bonuses ($2000)

There's a pick rate and if you don't pick enough you get the $25. That's in my birthplace not the one in the article. That's almost $17-$18 USD an hour.

McDonald's pays around $20 an hour afaik varys by location.

Apparently they're providing camper vans as well. The Aussies are trying to get kiwis to go over there as well.
 
Zardnaar said:
They can't really police the loopholes.

The way it works is they just have to provide evidence they're advertised for workers and can't get them.

So they make the ads sound unattractive or put them in places kiwis won't see them or point blank not hire kiwis.

Once they have the paperwork they just submit it and some bureaucrat isn't going to go hundreds of kilometres to check on every single application.

Alot of things here rely on honesty and good faith. I had friends severely rip the government off back in the 90s.

They probably genuinely can't get enough workers but they've also been boosting production on the assumption they can get such workers.

Think they cahnged the rules 2003, I did it 2000/2001 along with some friends and my now wife.

I wasn't very good at it but still got 25-50% more than minimum wage plus free accommodation. And could pick and choose my hours.

One guy was complaining he couldn't get his Thai workers. 12 hour days 6 days a weak minimum wage and they charged the workers for accommodation.

There's stories you can get $300-400 a day doing cherries but that's best case scenario with the best pickers. Think they're offering $25 an hour this year with bonuses ($2000)

There's a pick rate and if you don't pick enough you get the $25. That's in my birthplace not the one in the article. That's almost $17-$18 USD an hour.

McDonald's pays around $20 an hour afaik varys by location.

Apparently they're providing camper vans as well. The Aussies are trying to get kiwis to go over there as well.
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So, the fault isn't migration so migrants (or immigration policy) shouldn't be blamed for the faults of business. You may identify it as a scapegoat, sure, but nothing more than that.

It sounds like there should be more pressure brought to these businesses to actually pay a living wage. That way it wouldn't matter where the workers are brought in from, and there would be less incentive to abuse and exploit migrant workers.
 
Gorbles said:
So, the fault isn't migration so migrants (or immigration policy) shouldn't be blamed for the faults of business. You may identify it as a scapegoat, sure, but nothing more than that.

It sounds like there should be more pressure brought to these businesses to actually pay a living wage. That way it wouldn't matter where the workers are brought in from, and there would be less incentive to abuse and exploit migrant workers.
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Ideally yes but we had 9 years if a neo lib government and before that the Labour gorvernment brought it in.

They didn't intend on this happening and as I said they probably can't get enough workers.

Something like 53% have been outright exploiting them iirc.
 
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