It is really great to hear David Shearer today speaking up for a bigger effort to put Kiwis at the front of the queue when it comes to jobs and also creating opportunities for more of our young New Zealanders to get into apprenticeships.
You can check out the speech here.
I’ve been talking about the issue of cheap migrant labour for a while now. It’s not the fault of migrants. Many of them come here expecting a lot better than they end up with and we’ve been playing fast and loose with migrants to keep wages low in crucial industries.
There’s been plenty of media coverage about the foreign charter fishing vessels and the atrocious working conditions for migrants. That was a scandal that hit the international headlines, but there’s on land stories as well.
Earlier this year the Equal Opportunities Commissioner criticised the aged care industry for its low pay. The average pay for a residential rest home worker is $14.50, despite this job requiring considerable skill and experience, not to mention dedication.
The fast growing skill shortage is being met by bringing in migrant workers rather than offering higher wages or training opportunities to attract more New Zealanders into care. The EEO Commission found that migrant workers are often highly skilled with suitable nursing qualifications, but find themselves working for lower wages, working overtime and irregular hours with no extra compensation.
I’m also hearing similar stories in our agriculture industry with farm workers being hired from overseas, paid very little and given no support.
65 employers in Horticulture, Hospitality and Auckland CBD businesses are currently under investigation for exploiting migrants after 4 PTEs were found to be fronts for providing cheap labour.
Cheap migrant labour is now becoming a substitute for providing decent work, training and fair pay in some industries. The migrant workers miss out, but so do New Zealanders who want work.
David Shearer has announced Labour will institute a more rigorous process of giving approval to employers to bring in migrants.
We want to ensure employers make the effort to train New Zealanders, and don’t see migrant workers as an cheap alternative to paying fair wages and conditions to all workers in this country – whether they are born here or other countries.
sorry, don’t agree with this. It is a racist dogwhistle policy designed to further undermine immigrants, just like your ethnic council is chaired by a Pakeha.
@Ehoa : so you think migrant workers should be exploited then and in doing so, the wages and conditions of everyone who lives and works in New Zealand undermined? And I have no idea what you are talking about with our ethnic council.
Aged care has always been a problem for pay, and regardless of slight tory leanings (at points being accused of being a troll – for the record I only look like one) I support efforts to improve their lot.
@ehoa why can a ‘Pakeha’ not chair an ethnic council? Does that Pakeha person not have an ethnicity outside of such a broad brush term?
Hi Darien. I do not like your reference to newer migrants as cheap labor. It insults and you should show more respect.
I would be very interested in studying the voting pattern of our newer migrants. Could it be that they dont understand your “progresive” policies, or do they just like to earn some cash and spend it?
I’ve gone back and read this speech several times now and I still don’t like it.
I think Allyson has put her finger on why I don’t like it especially the insinuation that all migrants to New Zealand are illiterate and third world and they’re only coming here for low-paid low-skilled jobs. What about the scientists, doctors, teachers, entrepreuners and investors professionals et al…don’t we want the best of the global workforce to move here?
Does this also mean Labour will dump its own RSE scheme and force beneficiaries to fill those jobs as WINZ exercises its policy of “suitable” jobs, not “appropriate”?
And, there is something ugly in the repeated use of the word patriotic — it is populist and no doubt designed to evoke nationalism – I can see the rednecks rallying to this one!
@Rob S. It’s a personal view but I do have a problem with Pakeha chairing the Ethnic Council — its like having a master dictating terms to the rag-tag rabble of Asians, Indians, Africans and all other minorities lumped into one — seems like the sun never set on the great British Empire. What’s more I find the term “ethnic” to describe this part of Labour’s “broad Church” offensive — a euphemism for misfits.
@allyson you misrepresent my comment. Please read the whole paragraph. It’s not a description of migrants but of abuse by employers of the vulnerability of some migrants.
@ehoa you too. If we can’t name the problem then nothing gets changed. And no, we won’t get rid of the RSE scheme but I sure as hell will pursue any abuses, of which I am hearing more and more.
I am reading the biography of Michael Joseph Savage, ‘From the Cradle to The Grave.’ by Gary Gustafson.
Michael J. Savage said it and did it. He set up a Nation worthy of us all.
Where has that nation gone? Who plundered it driving it into it’s present sorry state.
I want a nation which has the strength to care. Jobs, income, opportunity and a living wage enabling citizens to participate in their own society, ably.
This book ought to be compulsory reading over Labour weekend.
@Vivienne Shepherd
+1
Well said.
We are selling out to the new immigrants 70-80% of the houses being sold in Auckland are going to Asian buyers.
Migration to Auckland both external and internal is driving Auckland’s housing, I hope the Asian property traders are paying tax on their profits.
Don’t worry, they’re not even paying tax on overseas earned income let alone profits…
Just as I thought, the Herald editorial has picked up on Shearer’s speech and highlighted why its a dogwhistle. Whoever wrote this speech probably went to the same school as Enoch Powell. Another own goal for Labour.
What a terrible editorial that distorts policy positions for his/her clear bias… I like the proposition that govts shouldn’t be involved in dictating labour laws to the private sector. Bah!
@Ehoa : the day we listen to the NZ Herald is the day Labour is doomed. Your comments are insulting and unworthy of you. I understand you are sensitive about migrants – and we must acknowledge the great contribution they make. But if we can never talk about immigration settings without being accused of dog whistle politics, we are in deep trouble. Of course employers want to be able to have a free hand to bring in cheaper labour, of course they don’t like immigration restrictions, of course the free market thinks there should be a free flow of capital and labour. By lining up with the NZ Herald, you are lining up with a policy that says NZ should never be able to regulate the labour market with all the consequences that go with that – and the consequences include migrants who are already living and working in NZ.
@alyson… so you don’t like migrants being portrayed as “cheap labour”?? You obviously have no idea what is going on in the building sector here in Auckland….
Take a slow drive through botany any day of the week/weekend…
Find a kiwi tradesman working there… good luck with that…
What you will find is Hundreds of asians working 12-14 hour days, seven day weeks, for about what someone at McDonalds gets… Every three months, the crews get replaced with workers with their brand new three month work visas…just like the crews they replaced….
If you are going to complain about “labelling”, then I would suggest doing it from a position of ignorance simply informs us regarding your loyalties… Which obviously aren’t to your own people, or society…
I’m predicting a massive “chardonney socialist” vote being directed to labour/greens once the current rank stupidity being employed regarding governance for the future sinks in to even the thickest of them..(usually, only once it has started to affect their own pockets)….
I’ve never aligned myself with John Key’s lap dog Herald, but I am not so myopic as to disagree with their writers all the time and on this rare occasion I find myself in agreement.
Perhaps I’ve looked at David Shearer’s speech through a different set of lenses than you and your colleagues, which reminds me of a quote from the former Kiwi rugby league captain and Warriors coach Mark Graham: “Opinions are like a*******s, everyone’s got one”.
Then, there’s the other oft used democratic one about not agreeing with everything being said but defending the right to say it.
For the record there are a number of policy initiatives in the speech that I agree with and I think David Cunliffe has summed those up pretty well in his post.
My concerns weren’t just about immigration, they are also about political risk, such as a patsy question in the house: “to the Minister….has he/she seen any reports of xenophobia?”.. it’s all about perception after that and the way the press gallery spins it as they did with the so-called video footage of Key and the GCSB.
I’ll be watching question time with interest this week and look forward to seeing Labour’s Immigration policy.
ps. I retract my Enoch Powell comment — it’s uncharitable.
#Ehoa – thanks. I understand why you might be sensitive to the kind of name calling by the NZ Herald and others, and so am I because it couldn’t be further from the truth. The perception only becomes that if we buy into it. Labour’s been called xenophobic for opposing the Crafar Farms sale, for sticking up for NZ contracts such as the Hillside workshop and so on. We can live with that. The important thing to know is that we do value migrants and those who already live here have just as much right as any other person to be treated fairly and not be exploited. And for those who want to live here, we owe it to them and our hard won labour laws, which are fast going down the gurgler to ensure all workers, no matter where they come from are treated properly, and not used by employers to keep wages low.
What is the justification for this suite of anti-immigrant policies?
Where is Labour’s hard evidence that immigrants take the jobs of locals? Where is there evidence that immigrants lower the wages of locals?
I have argued here before that international evidence does not support popular bromides that immigrants steal jobs or lower wages. For instance, this on the economics of immigration. Quote:
If Labour truly does not want to open themselves up to charges of racism and xenophobia than they should lay out the empirical evidence that supports such policies.
It is simply false to claim that these policies are to protect migrant and immigrant workers because it is absurd to claim you are protecting them by not allowing them to come here in the first place. You do that by, as David Shearer said, ensuring they have the same rights as anyone else. However, David Shearer in his speech does not justify these policies in that way he does it through the same old unsupported claims regarding local jobs and wages. So I ask where is the evidence to support these policies?
QtR, I realise you support a world labour market, where the local labour price falls to developing nation levels, but one reason immigrants come here is to receive better pay and conditions. And the democratic nation state generally is expected to act in the best interests of its people – those born here and those obtaining residency and citizenship. And that means expecting that business operates with some regard for the well being of the community where it is based.
“The big adverse gap in productivity between New Zealand and other countries opened up from the 1970s to the early 1990s. The policy choice that increased immigration – given the number of employers increasingly unable to pay First-World wages to the existing population and all the capital requirements that increasing populations involve – looks likely to have worked almost directly against the adjustment New Zealand needed to make and it might have been better off with a lower rate of net immigration. This adjustment would have involved a lower real interest rate (and cost of capital) and a lower real exchange rate, meaning a more favourable environment for raising the low level of productive capital per worker and labour productivity. The low level of capital per worker is a striking symptom of New Zealand’s economic challenge.”
http://www.treasury.govt.nz/publications/reviews-consultation/savingsworkinggroup/pdfs/swg-report-jan11.pdf
That conclusion is replicated here.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/immigration/immigration-link-to-economic-growth-yet-to-be-proven-says-productivity-commission/story-fn9hm1gu-1226179973978
Of course the best criticism of Labour policy is from someone else on the left
“The interesting question, therefore, is why Mr Shearer offered his staunchly Labour audience so little in the way of concrete measures for lifting wages and salaries. A careful reading of his speech reveals that increased incomes have been relegated to mere aspirations: something Labour would like to see; expects to see; but will do nothing beyond a modest increase in the minimum wage to achieve.
This means that any Labour Government led by Mr Shearer is likely to shy away from direct interventions in the labour market. It will not pass legislation designed to reverse the flow of wealth from wage and salary earners to owners and shareholders. It will not, by substantially lifting the minimum wage, engineer a wholesale winnowing-out of New Zealand’s most inefficient businesses. It will not pass legislation restoring universal union membership or the national award system. It will not use the Government’s ability to set wages and salaries in the public sector to provide both a guide and a goad for private sector employers. In short, it will not do any of the things required to raise the incomes of New Zealand’s wage and salary-earners.”
http://bowalleyroad.blogspot.co.nz/2012/10/mr-shearers-selective-patriotism.html
SPC – What I support is the people’s freedom of movement. As I argued in the last thread commonsense morality should imply a presumption in favor of free migration.
I have cited numerous pieces of empirical evidence on the previous thread on this topic and still. For instance, I cited a British Home Office study which found “The main result of the empirical analysis is that there is no strong evidence of large adverse effects of immigration on employment or wages of existing workers. … Insofar as there is evidence of any effect on wages, it suggests that immigration enhances wage growth.” and an NBER study in the US which “found that the influx of foreign workers between 1990 and 2004 raised the average wage of U.S.-born workers by 2 percent. Nine in ten American workers gained; only one in ten, (all high school dropouts), lost slightly, by 1 percent”.
I agree with your statement that “one reason immigrants come here is to receive better pay and conditions”. So why do you wish to deny them the freedom to seek better pay and conditions here?
I am not a national egoist We should think about the welfare of people other than those who were fortunate enough to be born in this country. The freedom to seek higher wages in developed countries will be of the greatest benefit to the poor of the world. It is no exaggeration to say that even small moves to ease immigration restrictions globally will do more for the poor of the world than any foreign aid program has done in history.
Harry Holland, Michael Joseph Savage, Peter Fraser, Walter Nash all Labour leaders all immigrants. I wonder what they would all think of Labour’s ant-immigrant policies. Policies that would deny more people the opportunity to live and work here.
Your link to the article in the Australian does not support your argument that immigration lowers wages. It says:
.
The Savings and Workings Group Report also cites this on New Zealand Research on the Economic Impacts of Immigration. Their general findings are that immigration makes a positive economic contribution.
So forgive me if I am not yet convinced that there is the evidence to support these anti-immigrant policies.
I expect Harry Holland, Michael Joseph Savage, Peter Fraser and Walter Nash would support the labour and economic regime that they applied at the time
1 labour laws that supported good pay and conditions for workers
2 a national economy that ensured full employment to local workers
They would have regarded free trade and free movement of labour as undermining local pay and conditions and full employment – such being a regime that was designed to cater to unfettered capitalism, where productivity gains were monopolised by capital and the costs of training workers and also unemployment were socialised to the government.
@SPC well said. I’m increasingly of the view that QTR is an immigration adviser/consultant.!! As for Chris Trotters piece …. Sorry, but he has no insights into the Labour Party policy or process and tends to make stuff up.
I would have thought freedom of movement was something we could have agreed upon. It is trumpeted by liberals and from the pulpits at socialist congresses alike.
If they believed that they would be wrong. The New Zealand evidence is that “immigrants have no negative impact on the labour market outcomes of the native born population”. Barriers to trade and capital the world over have fallen progressively with the outcome that hundreds of millions of people have been lifted out of poverty and global inequality has declined. The Labour party itself has been behind lowering barriers to trade between our nation and others. But the barriers to freedom of movement remain. Yet, the gains from reducing barriers to the free movement of people could be even greater than those from reducing the barriers to trade. In fact estimates of the gains for global GDP from removing barriers to labour mobility range from 50-150%. So even small increases in freedom of movement could have immense benefits for the world economy.
Is Darien Fenton prepared to state that yes she believes without doubt that current immigration to New Zealand lowers wages and displaces local workers? If not then what is problem that Labour are seeking to solve with these policies?
For argument’s sake let us grant that immigration does depress wages in New Zealand. We know from the empirical evidence that the entry of women in the labour market depresses men’s wages slightly and increases male wage inequality. Should that have led to Labour MPs to opposing the entry of women into the labour market in the mid twentieth century? Of course not! The gains to women’s welfare, to the economic welfare of the nation as a whole, and poverty reduction are benefit enough to support women’s entry into the workforce. So why should immigration be seen any differently. Immigration means welfare gains for the immigrant, for the host nation, and the home nation, it means reduced global poverty and reduced global inequality. If the Labour party cared about the welfare of the people of the world and reducing global poverty instead of just chasing a dwindling number of populist anti-immigrant votes they would support dismantling barriers to freedom of movement the world over.
Darien wishes to be seen to acknowledge the great contribution migrants make to the New Zealand economy and the empirical evidence shows they do indeed make a positive contribution so why does she support restrictions on freedom of movement? Both Darien and David Shearer have lived and worked around the world yet they wish to deny that freedom to others, others who are not as wealthy or educated as them.
Here’s a test of Darien’s support for this policy if an employer was going to hire an immigrant would Darien be prepared herself to tell that immigrant personally “I don’t think you should get this job I believe a New Zealand born person should be hired ahead of you?”
@QTR I think you are getting carried away. Have another read of the speech. The proposals are not anti immigration; they are simply proposing a tightening up of labour market testing for temporary work visas. And in answer to your last question, it depends on the circumstances.