The National government has made changes to the Recognised Seasonal Employer (RSE) scheme which allows overseas workers, mainly from the Pacific, to work in New Zealand temporarily in the horticulture and viticulture industries. Included is a change that will allow employers using the scheme to make deductions from pay, mostly for compulsory health insurance.

The workers already need to pay for their accommodation, visas, and even flights to New Zealand. Deductions will reduce pay rates below the minimum wage of $12.50 per hour. Richard Wagstaff of the Council of Trade Unions stated that the changes will “result in more blatant exploitation” of workers.

These workers are not in the same situation as any other New Zealand worker. They do not have any choice about who they work for once in the country. They often have little or no understanding of what their rights are or whether deductions from their wages might be reasonable, and they often feel obliged to accept deductions if they want to keep the job.

Wagstaff also said that already under the existing regulations there were examples of unauthorised and unfair deductions from workers pay. A Samoan contractor who has traveled to New Zealand three times with groups of RSE workers spoke to the Samoa Observer on condition of anonymity and told the newspaper she would not take any more workers to New Zealand. “We are not stupid Samoan people who do not know the rules and regulations of the programme” she said in response to comments from New Zealand Labour MP Darian Fenton who opposed the policy changes and made comments in the media that these workers need protection as they are “very vulnerable”.

The rights of workers are indeed under attack, but what they need is solidarity rather than sympathy.