The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (mbie) has received a number of complaints from migrants about working conditions and pay. Although only 10% of all workers are new migrants on work visas, 40% of the complaints have come from these people. In the last year, 828 complaints have been made by new migrants; the previous year it was 377. Inspectors from the mbie have been visiting places where migrants work and they will prosecute the employer if migrants have not been treated fairly.
Many new migrants have come to New Zealand to work in the dairy industry in the South Island, construction in Christchurch, the viticulture industry (wine) and the horticulture industry (vegetables, fruit and flowers).
Dairy farming in the South Island is different from traditional family-based farming. It is also different from traditional dairy farming where a share milker owns the cows. The farmer and the share milker work together and share the profits, usually 50 50. The new farms in Canterbury and Otago are large and often have a manager and several farm workers to milk the cows. Many of these farm workers are from overseas. Work is hard – they get up at 4.30am to milk the cows – and hours are long. If they receive a salary instead of pay by the hour, sometimes it means that they receive less than the minimum wage per hour.
Most migrants do not want to complain. However, word of mouth (through Facebook) works well for recommending good employers.
Vocabulary
• previous – the one before, (the year before)
• prosecute – take them to court
• salary – fixed pay for the year e.g. $50,000 a year; it is paid regularly, maybe every two weeks
• minimum wage – at the moment it is $14.25 an hour
• word of mouth – this is a useful idiom