From Robinvale Network House, 1 Maples Lane Robinvale 19.04.12

Inquiry into positioning the extent and nature of disadvantage and inequity in rural and regional Victoria

Submission

For the purposes of this submission, Robinvale Network House will not be focussing on those Government Agencies which are extremely well funded. What disadvantages they perceive they have are not in the same category as the marginalised people on whom we focus who have no voice whatsoever.

Preamble:

Publication: http://www.theage.com.au/national/exposing-the-lie-of-the-land-20091009-gqt5.html The Age Insight October 10, 2009 The Lie of the Land by Andrew Rule

This article’s description of working conditions, wages and accommodation is an accurate representation of what we have learnt over the years about the working lives of many Robinvale workers - particularly Asian, South East Asian, Islander and Middle Eastern workers - and the predatory behaviour of Labour Hire Contractors, some Growers and others in the Robinvale area.

We believe that there are significant numbers of the people working in the harvest, particularly of grapes in the Robinvale area, who are illegal workers – that is they do not have a work visa, or they have overstayed their work visa.

The majority of them certainly don’t speak English or know how the system works in Australia. Because these workers are unable to communicate with the wider community, what information they might have relies on second-hand information being passed to them – which is not necessarily accurate.

Within Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs of Human Beings the majority of these people are at the bottom of the pyramid: Physiological Needs of food and water achieved Safety and Security including employment, health and property – some only achieve, many feel insecure Sense of Belonging – questionable how many achieve this Esteem – self esteem, a sense of achievement, respect – questionable how many achieve this Self actualisation – a place where having achieved these other needs, people can now focus on bettering themselves – very questionable that many of these people achieve this level Robinvale is a non-union town so scrutiny of what wages people are paid is minimal and there is an attitude among some growers that they will pay what they feel is appropriate. There can be quite noticeable variations in what is paid from one grower to another as a result.

From a human potential point of view, there are far too many people in Robinvale who, due to circumstances to which they reacted upon, rather than them acting upon, we are a community which is a long way from reaching its true potential because hundreds of our community members have not reached the upper levels of the Hierarchy of Needs. The growers often don’t concern themselves in scrutinising staff because they are pragmatic about needing their crop to come off to get it to market in a timely fashion. The Fresh Fruit (grapes) industry does not have its own pay scale for the work to be done to harvest and prepare fruit for market. This is fairly intensive work. The industry tends to use the dried fruit pay rates to pay the workers – dried fruit require so much less handling than the preparation of fresh fruit.

It is impossible to comprehend that the VFF has not got involved with this problem to ensure that there is an adequate Award to cover the payment of workers of fresh fruit – they must surely be aware of this situation.

We believe that there are numbers of people, both those that are here legitimately and those who have overstayed their visas, who harbour many fears about those in authority, or those in uniforms. We have observed various instances of people who are obviously not Anglo-Saxon background retreating hurriedly into laneways when they have noticed sedans carrying men dressed in suits and the vehicle has red numberplates (government or government agencies registered).

1. Predators, Long working hours, and low pay

A. Contractors Several local growers have told us that Asians and Islanders may be working as much as 6.5 days per week and that the contractors insist that they only will collect their workers’ wages. Recently one grower learned that the workers were being paid $10 per hour by the Contractor he had engaged, but he was paying the Contractor $18 per hour.

After a discussion between the two, the workers are now being paid $12.50 per hour. There have been instances where when the workers themselves collect wages they are beaten up by the Contractor

Anecdotally w e have been told that Contractors deduct a series of fees from these workers before the workers receive their wages - transport fees to and from work each day (around $10 per day), ‘bank’ fees for giving these people cash, accommodation costs ($80-$100 per week – some of this in ‘warm’ beds contractor fees for giving these people work.

We have also been told by some of these workers that if they complain about how much they are paid, or the conditions they work under, the work with that contractor dries up. Most are too frightened to try to work for another contractor.

B. Growers There are some growers in this district who hold onto the bulk of the wages due to their workers during the harvest (that they have identified as ‘illegal’ workers). When the job is well nigh completed, these growers then contact Immigration who come and remove these workers as ‘illegals’. The growers who have used this practice to this get their crop off for considerably under budget, they retain the moneys owed to these workers – the workers of course cannot claim wages owed. As there are normally plenty of workers around, including ‘illegals’, the grower does not worry as these people can’t speak English to find out about these dodgy practices. C. ‘Churches’ in Robinvale Robinvale has around 20 ‘churches’ operating in the district. We have the conventional churches – and then a range of others that claim to be ‘churches’. A number of these appear to be aligned with Islander culture but close association with Labour Contractors. Churches don’t pay rates, and don’t pay taxes. It would be interesting for the ATO to check some of these individuals out. Virtually all of the people from Islander cultures practise tithing – on their gross wages. These people are expected to bring pay slips along as well as the money to be given to the church – this comes from wages before money is sent overseas, rent paid or food put on tables. It is improbable that those caught in this trap will ever manage to free themselves from these obligations.

2. ‘Accommodation’ for the marginalised Housing in Robinvale – or the shortage of appropriate public housing is a huge issue. At the Public Hearing 3rd March in Robinvale, The MVA Cooperative Services Coordinator complained about the standard of public housing stocks available for Aborigines in Robinvale. The reality is that of the available public housing stock in Robinvale, preference is given to Aborigines at concession rentals.

The Family Support Workers in Robinvale have provided the information that some local people have had their names down to access public housing for over 10 years and are still no closer to being allocated a house. Whenever there is an emergency requiring housing, these people get preference over those on the application list for public housing.

Other marginalised people coming in to Robinvale to work have to take their chances with whatever accommodation might be available in the private rental market and must pay much higher rentals than the subsidised rental rates paid by the local Aborigines.

This private rental accommodation mostly takes the form of: Old, poorly insulated weatherboard ex-Housing Commission housing stock, Pickers’ huts, Caravans, Garages and sheds that have been partitioned off, Some older flats/units and in one case last year a child’s cubby house. Some of this accommodation could be described as Third World standard.

We have been unable to accurately map actual population figures for Robinvale and district. Government – both State and Federal – have been able to conveniently ignore our needs because accurate Census figures are not available. We know that Historically the last two Census takings in Robinvale have been unmitigated disasters for Robinvale. a) 2001 Census - Immigration staged a raid for illegal immigrants in Robinvale during this Census, detaining 14 illegal residents. (Around 400 legitimate residents who panicked and fled following this raid tried to hand in their Census forms weeks after the actual Census – so could not be counted!!!) b) 2006 Census – despite the previous known travesty, Centrelink and the Victorian Taxi Directorate staged a raid the day before Census. Centrelink was able to grab a handful of welfare cheats. Numbers of Asian drivers with vans used to transport paying workers were fined by the VTD. The workers concerned certainly cannot afford to pay taxi fares to and from work. The welfare cheats could have been caught another time. These high-handed actions destroyed any chance Robinvale had of obtaining a reasonably accurate snapshot of population numbers. It is a terrible pity that the people responsible in both incidents were not sacked. Here are some examples of what happens as a result: 1. Overcrowding A In a residence in George Street Robinvale last winter, it was very lucky that there wasn’t carnage when overloading on the power circuits caused a house fire. There were several Asian families living in the residence. The outbreak occurred at 8.30pm so this time there were no casualties. The possible carnage if that fire had happened in the middle watches of the night is concerning. 2. Overcrowding B Last year, a Cambodian husband and wife actually paid rent to live in a child’s cubby house in a yard in Robinvale. The Contractor had workers living in other partitioned areas as well in the yard. 3. Overcrowding C The practice of sub-letting is fairly popular in Robinvale. One family rent a property, and then they sub-let rental space within the house itself, the garage, the back shed and so on. A local Cambodian house-holder owns a 5 bedroom house and rents out with 3 other families living in the residence with them. 4. Overcrowding D Some enterprising individuals have a number of caravans in the back yard and rent out beds in caravans. Many of these caravans are unfit for human habitation - being very old, poorly ventilated, leaky and possibly the gas stove and fridge have not been serviced in years. Consumer Affairs has recently been trying to investigate this as these entrepreneurs are not registered as landlords. To provide the necessities, the landlord sometimes resorts to building illegal ablution blocks and extra toilets in the yard without going to the trouble of obtaining permits from Swan Hill Rural City Council. Most of these places around Robinvale can be easily identified by the high fences which have been erected without, yet again, bothering to go to the trouble of getting a permit from Council or having consultation with the next door neighbours 5. Pickers’ Huts – There are some sterling examples of these around the district – many of which should have been demolished years ago as unfit for human habitation – poorly ventilated, poorly or not insulated, lack of adequate heating and cooling. it would be rare indeed for the blockies who own these buildings to not be charging rental on them. However, some people are desperate for accommodation, and these provide a roof over their heads.

3. Work conditions Long days: 12 hour working days for semi-skilled and unskilled workers are the norm. By 6.30am at points in Robinvale, queues of people can be observed boarding buses and vans to go to work. Around 6.30pm at points in Robinvale, queues of people can be observed disgorging from vans and buses to head home. It is quite easy to observe teams of Asian workers around the district squatting having a very brief midday meal and then getting straight back to work. Because these marginalised people are working in paddocks from early morning each day, and home when the light is starting to fade, to the casual observer they are invisible.

During the grape harvest, it is also common practice for the growers to want workers racking down before daylight, starting work at 6am lidding boxes of fruit before the main work of the day starts.

Low wages: It is now a very common practice for workers to ‘pick and pack to the block’ – and paid currently as little as $1.50 per 10kg box. This means the worker picks the fruit, trims the bad bits out of bunches, packs the bunches into boxes (either for export or local market) and ensures that each box weighs 10kg. Very few places have pickers picking fruit (paid contract rates per box) to be taken to sheds where workers trim bunches (at hourly rates) for packing and weighing.

Exploiting the workers: It is a common work practice among some of the growers to extract unpaid work out of their workers. Smoko breaks are supposed to be 15 minutes mid-morning and mid- afternoon, but the growers bustle people back to work after 10 minutes each break – if people object, they are labelled trouble makers and find it hard to get other work. (Some people aren’t given the opportunity to have a smoko break at all, regardless of the heat in which they work.) Lunch break is supposed to be 60 minutes, but the growers bustle people back to work within 50 minutes. They tell people to finish up at 4.55pm and then the workers have to clean up before they go home. They bustle the workers to complete that task within 15 minutes because if the workers work 20 minutes extra, that is when overtime kicks in. By day’s end it is possible to get an extra 30 minutes of unpaid work out of each worker using these unethical practices. The hidden extras which have been extracted do not appear on payslips – so the grower gets around an unpaid 2.5 hours extra per worker per week during the picking season.

4. Toeing the Federal Government Line for Guest Workers This is the second year that Guest Workers have been brought into Robinvale from Tonga and surrounds to work 6 months on the harvest.

Last year, local Select Harvest and Tree Minder workers were sacked to make way for these Guest Workers. Workers at the Almond Cracking Plant were sacked to make way for the guest workers to ensure that these Guest Workers had 6 continuous months of work. Last year, the Islander people in Robinvale were initially happy enough to welcome these people – until some of them started to lose their jobs.

The guest workers were supposed to have accommodation provided by the Contractors – Tree Minders. The people around Boundary Bend talk about the tents set up as accommodation for some of these workers – this was ‘accommodation’.

In 2010, numbers of Islanders have again been laid off by Tree Minders and by Select Harvests to make way for Guest Workers. We have learned that these Guest Workers have not been welcomed by the Tongan community – as too many of the locals have lost their jobs.

Once these Guest Workers have left again, the local people will again try to get work with these Companies – most simply because their options are limited.