Michael Morrah (Newshub)
Business leaders say that New Zealand’s reputation is at risk if employers don’t do more to combat modern-day slavery.
Immigration Minister Iain Lees-Galloway said that one possible option is to legislate and force companies to ensure their product supply chains are legitimate.
Feroz Ali was the first person to be found guilty of human trafficking in New Zealand. Masala Restaurant chain bosses also ended up in the dock, charged with exploiting workers.
Then, there were the owners of a Japanese chain in Auckland who took passports off their workers while paying them a pittance.
They are all cases that have business leaders worried and trying to come up with rules to stop worker exploitation.
Prosecuting defaulters
“New Zealand’s reputation is ultimately at stake and it is important that we get things right,” Ice Beaker chairman Rob Fyfe said.
In the UK, an Anti-Slavery Act was introduced making business accountable if it is shown that they have used exploitative practices like child labour in their supply chain.
“Legislation is one possible outcome, but there are a number of options that we could consider. There might be, for example, an accord that we people could sign up to,” Mr Lees-Galloway said.
In the 2016 financial year, Immigration New Zealand (INZ) received 2617 complaints relating to either employment issues, fraud by agents, exploitation or trafficking.
Of those, 22 cases resulted in prosecution. A further 188 cases are still being investigated.
Those who work to support migrants say while it is important that employers have strict rules, workers currently don’t feel protected if they choose to blow the whistle on exploitative behaviour.
“The Government itself hasn’t really put in place many measures to empower workers or make them confident that they should step forward, step up and speak out,” Anu Kaloti of Migrant Workers Association said.
The Government said that it will address that and plans to double labour inspectorate numbers – but that won’t happen for another two years.
Indian Newslink has published the above Report and Picture under a Special Agreement with www.rnz.co.nz
Writing in Indian Newslink 18th Anniversary Special (November 15, 2018), Immigration Minister Iain Lees-Galloway said the following:
Tackling exploitation
You will have already noticed that this Government is very focused on addressing migrant exploitation and ensuring that we have the right resources in place to tackle the issue. As you are well aware from experiences in the Indian community, too many migrants in New Zealand are being underpaid or not receiving what their employer promised them.
That is why we will double the number of labour inspectors and ensure that they are located in areas with high levels of migrant workers.
A lot of work is already going on involving Immigration New Zealand, the Labour inspectorate and other agencies to detect and respond to instances of migrant exploitation in high-risk industries such as retail, hospitality and horticulture.
But I know that even more can be done and with increased resourcing we will be able to get on top of the issue and ensure that migrant workers – whether they are from India or anywhere else in the world – do indeed have the same employment rights as all other workers in New Zealand.
Migrant exploitation is not only bad for the migrants, but it also means the wages and conditions of New Zealand workers are undercut. In a nutshell, a society dependent on exploitation is not the kind of country New Zealand should be.
Work in progress
I want to acknowledge the work currently underway that the new Government supports, including the policy to stop employers who breach immigration and employment law from recruiting migrant workers for defined stand-down periods ranging from six months to two years, depending on the severity of the case.
This is a good example of regulators working together to combat migrant exploitation, but more importantly it sends a strong message to errant employers that they will be strongly penalised for not complying with the law and having a commercial advantage over their competitors.
We will review immigration settings to ensure they are right for New Zealand, but I do want to emphasise that the Government has no set timeframes at this stage and we will be working through the process with officials.
*
Additional Reading: Our Leader, “Exploiting employers must be named and shamed” under Viewlink
Photo :
Iain Lees-Galloway (File Photo)
