Ignoring for a moment the implicit racism in the dotty professor's suggestion that, rather than importing impoverished 'coloured' people to perform menial agricultural tasks, we should somehow force our own impoverished 'coloured' people to instead - has it occurred to anybody that the reason the market can't fill these jobs from the Australian workforce is quite simply that it's vile work that pays poorly?

In my youthful travels, I had brief stints picking various fruits and vegetables and did a short stint working in an abattoir. I only stayed in those jobs for exactly as long as it took to earn enough money to move on. The major employer in my little town is an abattoir, and I notice regularly the effects of monotonous, dehumanising work on the social abilities of those who are unfortunate enough to have to work there. We also experience seasonal influxes of fruit and vegetable pickers, who are only willing to do the work because they're usually itinerant and the seasons are relatively short.

Of course, the disgusting conditions under which these people work could be easily compensated for if the workers were offered good money for their labour, but unfortunately it seems that this is unsustainable under current market conditions. Hence the discursive space for the articulation of obnoxious ideas like the reinstatement of 'kanaka' labour to prop up our unsustainable agriculture.

Yabby,

I have employed people operating machinery, but I took great care not to take on people who did not really want to be there. It seems that around Katanning, the pool of willing workers must be too small to fill the abattoir's requirements. I have also, as an employee, worked long shifts involving continuous physical exertion under hot and at times primitive conditions in a factory floor situation. In a former life I was responsible, although admittedly not as an employer in the sense you mean, for work oversight of significant numbers of men who did not really want to be where they were. I think I have a good all-round perspective on the situation your industry is in.

To bring the discussion back to the topic, I think I have to advance the point CJMorgan, although describing, refrained from pushing as to the possibly unconscious racism implicit in the phrasing of the very topic itself. Why should it be that largely aboriginal recipients of welfare should be seen as the untapped labour source for the plantations? Yass suh, boss! As CJMorgan points out, many of these jobs are perceived as vile work that pays poorly. As such they are valuable as what amounts to 'punishment postings' for the shiftless layabouts from the totality of the Australian community that are in need of being physically separated from their illegal drugs and a paradigm shift in their outlook. Universal military service could well be the organizational vehicle capable of delivering those who show less than the required application, discipline and skill in the military arena to the workplace, dried out, shaken up, under supervision, on time, ready for work, in the certain knowledge that there exists a much less pleasant and rewarding alternative behind razor wire in a military corrective establishment if they don't shape up!

CJMorgan, perhaps a little tritely, also identifies your localized shortage of suitable labour as, effectively, purely a challenge to management innovation that has not yet been met. You and I know there is much more to it than that.

Actually, Forrest, I was referring to structural rather than local reasons that so many of our agricultural and horticultural industries have become uncompetitive in attracting labour. Since the removal of tariffs and the imposition of competition policy, the relatively paltry wages that agricultural industries can afford to pay are insufficiently lucrative to attract workers who are prepared to endure the unpleasant and arduous working conditions.

Coincidentally, during those 'youthful travels' I spent some time in the Katanning district in the 1970s, working as a farmhand on a medium-sized wheat, sheep and oats farm. In those days the local abbatoir (SMP?) used to employ significant numbers of Malays from Christmas Island - one spin-off being that I was delighted to find a delicious Malay restaurant in Katanning, of all places... I suppose that workers like those would be more likely to earn better money in other industries these days.

Somewhat closer to the topic, I also recall being astonished to find myself working alongside young Aboriginal men carting hay (the old way, with pitchforks). These guys were strong, fit and enthusiastic workers from nearby Gnowangerup, whom I discovered were getting paid exactly half the hourly rate that I was. When I asked my boss why, the reply was that they were blacks.

One can imagine the positive effect that this kind of discrimination had on their 'work ethic' - this was only in 1975! Of course, Aboriginal workers have never been exploited in Queensland, have they?

"I suppose that workers like those would be more likely to earn better money in other industries these days."

Actually thats not the problem, there are still plenty of Malays
working in Katanning. But the world and farming are changing. As
wool collapses and meat production grows, more workers are required.
The WA economy grew by 14% last year, driven by mining. People
can go work for the miners fly in fly out, sit on a machine for
80-100k a year. Why should they bother with agriculture?

The thing is, WA agriculture is highly efficient and in fact
quite sustainable. Our problem is getting products from the farms
to the wharves or airports efficiently. Bring a Chinese meatworker
here and they think they are in heaven, earning 40-50k a year,
something the locals turn their nose up about. If Aussies
don't want these jobs, why is the Fed Govt holding us up in
importing more overseas workers who actually want to work?

Just look at exports. Us 10% are producing 30%, so give us
a break please! After all its us who are helping the A$ not
become the Aussie peso.

Yabby,

It seems to me that folks on the right are all in favour of the free market when it benefits capital at the expense of labour, but not when it acts in the opposite direction, i.e., they want to have their collective thumb on the scales. The folks who benefit from the resources boom don't want to share the gains with those lower down in the food chain, by paying higher prices for their meat for example, so that the abbatoir can pay higher wages.

Some towns in the US such as Hazleton, Pennsylvania have been getting rid of their illegal immigrants with ordinances making life difficult for their employers and landlords. One such town in North Carolina had a chicken processing plant, and it was predicted that the plant would have to close down when the illegal immigrants left. After all, these are jobs that "Americans won't do". No such thing. The plant raised its wages by a dollar an hour so that they were above the wages paid by the local Walmart. They instantly got all of the local white and black citizen workers they wanted. Senator McCain (also in the US) foolishly told a hostile working class audience that they wouldn't pick lettuces for $50 an hour. His office was besieged with thousands of offers to do just that.

In the WA case, since the federal government has an interest in getting some of the 16% of the working age population that is currently on welfare off, it might be advised to cooperate with the abbatoir, by screening people in the areas of high unemployment to find those physically and psychologically suited to the work and then helping them with relocation costs and letting them keep more of their earnings.

Divergence, thanks for your post. Virtually all workers in Aus
are benefitting from the mining boom, as all are paid 9% of their
salaries in super. Those super funds would all own BHP, Woodside,
and other shares, on behalf of workers. Taxes to Govt means more
money for workers.

As to farming industries paying wages similar to miners, that
would be nice, but not realistic. International meat prices are
set by the marketplace, so its not about deciding to pay more for
meat. Much of that meat, such as mutton, actually goes to the
developing world. Wammco is a grower owned coop, no big capital
behind it.

The idea of screening people in other areas and sending them there
is all very nice, but in reality most people don't seem to want
to leave their friends and families and move across the country.
The labour shortage has been on for years, nothing has been done
for years, just talk. The meat industry needs some flexibility,
to deal with droughts etc. Perhaps its time that the Feds let
our industry operate at its potential capacity, rather then
hold it up with red tape. Carting sheep across Australia to
slaughter them, is neither a good thing for animal welfare, nor
very profitable for growers, when the freight absorbs much of
the animals value. WA farmers are once again the ultimate losers.