The NFF hasn't improved on the industry's 19th century culture.
What they are proposing is simply 21st century Blackbirding....

Maracas,

This is absolute rubbish. Giving people the ability to earn their own money, instead of relying upon handouts, is highly beneficial.

I would like to hear your solution for the woes of the Pacific nations

Agreed. 'Guest workers' is the wrong way to go. Free trade was supposed to take care of smaller, poorer countries, but it now seems like a con trick for exporters to make more money.

With the number people on the dole in Austalia, there should be no problem with getting workers, if the Government had the guts to weed out the bludgers and put them to work.

Anyway, it looks as if South Austalian irrigators will have no water alloctions at all next season, so there might be a lot of people looking for jobs in other states.

I am a seasonal fruit picker/farm hand and I can tell you the real reason why farmers cannot find workers: it is because THEY PAY US CRAP WAGES. Yes, it is that simple!
There is no such thing as a shortage of labour. What there is, is a shortage of people who like working at $13/hr or less. There is also a shortage of people who like working 16+ hour shifts 6 days a week.
No, I'm not exaggerating here. It really is the case that many farm labourers are making less than minimum wages. It is also very common for workers not to get paid super.
The 'make-up' of the workforce has changed over the last couple of decades. Twenty years ago you if you visited a farm you would find traditional hard working 'illegals' and Australian 'gun' pickers working under piece work contract. Hard work was rewarded, gun pickers could make income comparable to tradesmen. But now a farm's labour will predominately consist of backpackers.
Backpackers are here on holiday, all they want is enough money to get to the next town and to party. So on average they will only stay a few weeks in any given rural town. But they wish to make as much money as possible during this time so they are prepared to work incredible long hours. We're talking 16+ shifts here 7 days a week. While it is possilbe to work 100 hours a week for a few weeks or so, it is almost impossible to do it continuously-- hence most Australian workers cannot work a whole season at the one fruit shed any more. The backpackers have also affected they quality of the work performed. Most backpackers are fresh out of school/uni. They have never done physical farm work previously. Consquently thier work output and quality is considerably less than an experienced picker. The farmer compensates for this by reducing wages. This collective punishment for the poor workmanship of the backpacker penalises the true gun picker-- consequently the guns have quit and left the industry.

What pcannon says is believable. Let's not fall for the 'poor old farmers' line. I certainly would not pick fruit in the heat for the wages they want to pay. Putting it over backpackers who want short term work only to finance their holiday before they return home to a well-paid career is a form of exploitation by orchardists.

There are enough Austalians who would be prepared to pick, if they were paid a decent wage to do it. Any employer using foreign labour is a bludger.

Thanks, pcannon for your input. We are hearing almost nothing these days from those directly concerned.

Whilst I have made own position against the guest Island scheme clear (See for example "Doug Cameron: Guest workers threaten Australian wages and conditions" at http://candobetter.org/node/517) I need to understand the economics of this issue better.

pcannon, I think some of what you write seems a little contradictory. On the one hand you rightly object to the way backpackers are prepared to work for 16+ hours per day 7 days per week, but on the other you say that backpackers are less productive than native Australian workers. If that is so, it would make no economic sense for farmers to favour backpackers over more traditional workers. Although I concede that not everything that happens in this country makes economic sense, it seems more likely to me that, on the whole, farmers are better able to exploit backpackers (and Pacific Island guest workers) than they are Australians.

We should ask why it seems possible for backpackers to exist on wages that you or I could not hope to live on in any dignified way over a longer period of time.

Part of the reason may be that they don't need to pay rent, car registration and other expenses. Because they are young and fit they can better endure material depredations for a year or two. Most probably plan to go back to University and have high paying careers in a few years' time. If their plans are realised, they would never again dream of working for the kind of wages they are prepared to now. However, in the meantime, they are helping to depress the wage levels of those who may have to work as fruit pickers for the rest of their lives.

Other factors to be considered is the unfair competition that Australian farmers face from fruit imparted (wastefully using the world's diminishing stocks of petroleum) from overseas slave labour economies.

I encourage anyone here concerned with this issue to also check out http://candobetter.org/immigration and to get in touch with me through http://candobetter.org/contact

Weren’t all the Indians taken to the Pacific Islands by the British to work due to the intrinsic laziness of these people? When it comes to doing work the Pacific Islanders hardly have a good reputation for it!

For starts they could stop rioting every few years in their cities and burning down every building in site. This would be a good starting point for increasing their economic prosperity.

I am not sold that taking hundreds of thousands of these people into Australia will solve any of their problems

Yes, and maybe Woolworths “et al” could pay farmers reflective prices, might that not help? Fruit picking is not a career choice for many workers.
Keep in mind the federal Government has included a dispensation into “pay as you earn” tax obligations especially to encourage workers to the orchids for picking. That is an incentive worth exploiting if the worker is employed for a “working holiday” situation outside his normal employment.
The big downside in need of repair is accommodation expenses for itinerate workers. The days of a free camp site on the road side or TSR have long been absorbed into exploitation of “Market forces”.
In short, fruit picking is a job not worth the effort and discomfort!
Dear oh dear, a negative influence of market forces.

Stephen Holden wrote:

"The NFF has asked for a working visa that allows Pacific Islanders to only work in the horticultural industry, a subsector of the wider agricultural industry. This is an insult to Pacific Islanders. The NFF wants to lock an ethnic group into one special category. In other words if you’re a Pacific Islander you pick fruit."

If we are to allow more immigrants, which I think we should not, we should not have two classes of workers. As I wrote on Friday 16 May in a letter to the Courier Mail that was not published (http://candobetter.org/node/517#UnpublishedLetter) :

Dear editor,

If the Pacific Island guest worker scheme works, as Steve Lewis ("Guest workers a foreign policy challenge", 16 May) claims it will, it will, in effect, be an apartheid labor scheme. If it breaks down as many fear, it will result in a further permanent increase to our population and make worse all the resultant problems which fill the pages of the Courier Mail almost every day of the week - traffic congestion, housing unaffordability, the water, health and eduction crisis and the ever growing financial costs of fixing them.

If we accept claims about there being a labour shortage, then why don't, we instead of further degrading our quality of life, change our priorities as a society. For example, must we dig up all of our mineral wealth now, when it is clearly making global warming worse? Indeed reducing our mineral exports and generous foreign aid programs, including aid for birth control, would be far better ways to help Pacific islanders.

Pcannon,
The reason that farmers pay you crap wages is simply because they get paid little for their produce. It is an everlasting battle for farmers to justify their continuing in business.

As you say things changed about 2 decades ago. Until then the pay was cash and tax free, which made it worthwhile for those willing to work. Vic Rail used to run special pickers trains to the fruit areas and many workers in full time jobs took their holidays to coincide with the fruit harvest. Both male and female then went picking to pay off their house or block. It was about getting a start in life while you were young and fit. Then the Keating government decided that ALL employees had to have a Tax file Number. They sent a few inspectors out and scared the farmers into not employing those without a TFN and tax had to be taken out. This then meant that it was no longer worth the effort put in, after tax. The work incentive was gone for most and the backpackers filled the void.

Picking is really hard and hot work and I do not begrudge pickers getting paid tax free for it. I don't know if backpackers get special tax exemptions or not but the tax thing ruined it for most Aussies. Funny thing is that the tax free money the pickers used to get did not stay out of the economy for long and at least it remained in our country.

Saw a programme on a seasonal scheme run in NZ with Pacifis Islanders which may be worth looking at for implementation here.

Be interesting to get your comments on the above.

pcannon,

My late father (1911) said the [Shepparton, Vic.] farmers really exploited the intinerate workers, especiallly around the time of Great Depresssion. Today, the are argrian solicialist. All welfare is bad, except if a farm subsidy.

Naru is a case in-point its inhabitant lay back while Expats worked. Now its economy is ruined and unless someone takes them in 100 years they are going to drown.

Exploitation and Sloth.

pcannon

Thankyou! I moved to the Riverland some 20yrs ago, I was kept in employment picking and pruning.
10 acres was all you needed to enjoy a life which was casual, in the sense that fruit is seasonal and you worked your butt off for probably 9mths a year. The grower got $300 a ton for oranges and the picker if experienced, reliable and didn't mind hard work earned $170 to $180 dollars a week. Not everyones "go" but it was a good life.
The orange trees are gone, we now import nearly all, grapes are no longer hand picked, wineries pay crap and don't abide by contracts
growers all have town or winery jobs, land has trebled in price and vines are now owned by ex city folk who have super payments to back often foolish investment.
Vines are being pulled and top fruit land stands idle or grows pumpkin when they have water.
No ones going broke-yet- lots of land "for sale" signs with accompanying price slides.
Trees take ten years to produce a commercial crop and lotsa water, all the "lifestyle" people have gone, we are now surrounded by Madec would be's and the kids head for cities.
I thank goodness, not god, am 75yrs and like everyone else don't care.
The good days have gone and will never return thanks to real estate agents, water brokers and Madec and piss they call wine.
I worked alongside back packers most from europe, most great people who spent little here, they were trying to finance travel to the next country. The game was to return with the same bank balance they left home with. Not many realised how hard they were expected to work, I was glad they came for they informed me, stories are great to here while having lunch or a beer at the end of the day, or while sitting in camp beside the river.

fluff4