I worked picking pears in 1974 in the Shepparton area, not because I was a backpacker but because I was desperate to find work. Well, never again: the accommodation I had I wouldn't put a dog in a hovel like that. Then someone recommended Ardmona to me and what a difference! Like day and night! They were humane, even had a rostered cook. They showed compassion toward their workers and had people coming back to work for them year after year. And accommodation was spartan but clean without bedbugs and well-run. Bless their hearts and may they prosper!

Backpacker Exploitation
If as said it is backpacker exploitation to work in primary industry
Then what about the Aussies that have worked in the industry for decades they get the same pay as the backpackers

Up here in the Lockyer Valley the shed workers look down on the cutters, the truck drivers look down on the shed workers etc.

What they all don't see if not for the cutters that harvest the crops there would be no shed workers

If not for the shed workers there would be no truck drivers taking the product to market

With out the truck drivers there would be a lot less servo workers and mechanics etc etc

All the way up to the ones at the top, The Executives earning the multi million dollar pay packets

A cutter earns approx $18.50 per hour worked no sick pay no holiday pay no company car etc etc

This has been going on for many decades now so EXPLOITATION what do you call what is going on with the Aussies

Primary Industry is called that because you don't eat without this sector that's why I say let the Executives in the big offices have thier money but don't sell them the food and see if they get fat on eating the money it is time that we shared the system a little better

Thanks have a good life from Dave

When we start paying farmers a decent price for their produce there will be less reason for them to pay the absolute minimum wages. Most farmers are struggling to make a living for their families these days and it doesn't look like getting any better soon, particularly when the big supermarkets are importing so much cheap food.

David (ex farmer/farmer's son)

I am basically in agreement Mike Pope, but let us remember two things. Every year on the Granite Belt where I live, farming land is taken out of production, because the farmers are no longer able to get a profitable price for growing fruit and vegetables. They would prefer to employ young Australians, not backpackers, but the young people of Australia would rather collect unemployment benefits than live like backpackers.
Everything Mike says about collusion between hostels or caravan parks and farmers does happen. The backpackers who get caught in this situation are those who do not own a car and are reliant on the hostel to take them to work.
Four years ago, as a guest house licensed to take 18 guests, I began offering my accommodation to Korean backpackers, the group I considered the most exploited by the harvest situation during the summer months. I do not offer transport. Koreans, as couples or four travelling together, purchase a shared car. I refer the backpackers to JSA Stanthorpe office, although some farmers now request me to supply them with small teams of workers because they have found the Korean backpackers to be reliable workers. Since the first year I have always had a number of backpackers returning to stay with me and they know the farms where they wish to work.
As Mike says, word of the best value for money has spread among backpackers, all of whom are computer literate, most of whom have mobile phones and can readily contact each other. Happy Korean backpackers have seen to it that our guest house is now listed in the Korean version of The Lonely Planet hand book. In the last week I have had to refuse accommodation to four car loads of Korean backpackers wishing to stay here as my guest house won’t be open as a backpacker hostel until December.

VK3AUU
David,
When they took the right from a farmer to supply a home, meat, electricity, somewhere to grow a few vegies etc and made all this fringe benefit and taxable that is when the farmer started the downhill spiral.
When I first moved here in 2001 the farmers and workers used to eat the seconds, in the last 12 months the farmers are telling the workers to eat the market product because the farmer just ain't getting what the product is worth
Further the farmer has overdrafts that they pay the workers a weekly wage from but the farmers can wait up to 3 months to get payment for thier product
The whole show with the rural sector is a mess

Thanks have a good life from Dave

Well said David, I think it might be a good idea if our Mr Pope aimed his care & concern at some of his own, rather than the backpackers, who are using the farmer every bit as nuch as they are used. Quite often the small crop farmer won't get a cent back, for those wages paid. For a trained economist he has a poor grip of the costs of farming.

One organic farmer neighbour of mine gave up, & went truck driving, after a six week period, when the price he got for his produce, [realy nice stuff] was not enough to pay for the cartons it was packed in, & the cost of the freight to market. He'd spent 7 years building the organic productivity of that farm.

A tomato grower I know in Bundaberg told me why he can't take a holiday, because of how his income works.

For about a month each year, he gets a bill from the markets, when the cost of dumping his unsold stuff exceeds the sale price for what was sold.

For a couple of months, the income does not cover freight & packaging.

For about 3 months, the income covers most of his costs, but he is still loosing money.

For another 3 months, he is making a little money, but nothing like what's required to pay for his losses.

For the other 3 months, generally because of someone else's misfortune with crop losses, due to weather, prices are sky high, & he makes a really good proffit.

With luck, this pays for earlier losses, & a bit more. Last year was so good, he made enough for a new tractor, a 6 person harvesting rig, & 25 acres of replacment trellising.

He must have a crop producing at all times, or he may miss that good patch, & no one can predict just when it will be.

Perhaps Mike hasn't noticed, teacher aids, at the local high school, have the same pay, & conditions as a fruit picker, perhaps he should shed a few tears at the high school.

The exploitation i know exists in the Robinvale area.
This farmer employs vietnamese to pick grapes on his block for the fresh market.
His workers get whatever he has got to pay: with deductions.
He supplies transport to and from town, when these people arrive which he charges taxi fares.
He supplies the acomadation on farm in tin sheds, which he charges rent.
He supplies the meals and charges what they charge in town.
His workers get whats left if any.
His captive workforce has no come back, this is ok by the law.
These vietnamese don't speak much or no english.

Farmers have been a protected species for far too long. If they cannot attract workers based on paying good wages then they should be allowed to go out of business. This is how capitalism works.

There are two issues here:

1: Failure of governments to protect minimum wage earners, many of them migrant workers. Also human decency should ensure decent, sanitary accommodation for primary industry workers. There is all talk but no monitoring. I am not suggesting micromanagement scrutiny but a basic level of standard should be enshrined in workplace law. There is of course the Fair Work Ombudsman to investigate complaints but backpackers often don't have the time or knowledge to pursue their cases to the full extent.

2. The other equally important consideration is because of our ridiculous market system, farmers in many sectors are struggling to make a living while the costs of production outweigh what they are offerred for their product.

A farmer who cannot even pay himself a decent wage won't have the capacity to pay anyone else a legal wage.

Mike
You should have learnt the disproofs of your arguments in Economics 101.

For starters, you have not shown any exploitation whatsoever. The fact that you don’t like transactions that other people voluntarily enter into, doesn’t mean they’re exploitative. The consent of the parties to the transaction answers all moral issues.

To say that the backpackers have no choice is rubbish. They have the choice not to work there. Besides, they have the choice not to emigrate from countries where the wages are lower still.

You ask why farmers don’t supply this or that. Why don’t you?

You might say that the farmers get the benefit; but they don’t. They don’t get the benefit of paying costs over and above market rates. Why don’t you and Pelican put your money where your mouth is?

The point everyone is missing is that the market system generates greater wealth for everyone participating based on the economic sovereignty of the masses of people *as consumers*, not as producers. That’s why the South Koreans, but not the North Koreans, can afford these trips. The North Koreans think like Mike Pope and Pelican.

What is fair is what is agreed. The farmers are themselves in competition for workers. *That*, the accumulation of capital, and the demand of the consumers for fruit, is what justifies the wages and conditions of workers, not the arbitrary opinion of politburos and commissariats.

Pelican
That must be the most asinine comment I have seen in a long time. You assume that there is a fountain of capital somewhere that can just be indefinitely drained, to provide everyone with an income and conditions that bear no relation to what the consumer is prepared to pay for their product. You have confused what is fair with what is dictated.

“our ridiculous market system”

What would you replace it with? An entitlement for everyone to receive what is “fair”, as dictated by the priviligentsia, with everyone drawing from the common storehouse, and no-one with an interest in producing what the consumers actual want?

Perhaps they should come a bit further north, to the Burdekin. All the backpackers I have met around here are high on life, enjoy their stay and don't complain. Maybe they're getting paid better than backpackers elsewhere, maybe they're traeted to better accommodation or maybe I've simply met the lucky ones.

It is certainly worth noting that these people are supplementing their income - they tend to have some cash to burn and the money they get from picking mangoes is simply a bonus. Those who do it year in, year out for the same pay are the ones who, as so many others here have said, deserve our attention.

Peter
I had no doubt your faith in all things laissez-faire would lead you to judge any contrary comments as asinine

I have never worked in the fruit or vegetable picking. We were out of work once and could not find anything at the same time newspaper were saying farmers could not get workers. The essence was that people did not want to do this work. So we went around applying but nothing was available. Eventually found out that they really did not want Australian workers because it was too expensive and the accusation Australians did not want to work was to promote the case for migrant farmworkers which are cheaper. We were up around Emerald way and came across an agency caravan of migrant workers. They had little English language but enough to learn they were paid $30 after deduction for travel cost, agency fees,food and accommodation. I wrote to the government and said something appears wrong and the reply I received was that at the time no crops were at maturity and that was the reason we could not get work. The exploitation angle was not addressed.

However it does get worse. There is a group called wwoofers. Tourism in North Queensland use this agency or the same concept that rewards backpackers with an experience instead of any financial compensation at all. So they provide a free dive or a free stay on a farm in exchange for work. However even worse again is that many use the same service when they are not even in business. I know one person who had his house renovated with backpacker labour in exchange for free room on his acreage. The only crop I know this person to grow can be called organic and even commercial but hardly legal if you get my drift.

Meanwhile we struggle with 14% unemployment. Perhaps in the argument of national interest we need farming so subsiding has to be considered as the alternate is simply not acceptable.

Hasbeen

If all or even most growers faced the same problems as your tomato grower, then they would all be hanging on by the skin of their teeth and the market price of fruit, veges and other crops would rising rapidly. This is not the case because most growers make a decent living at current market prices and most provide reasonable working conditions and pay proper wages to those they employ. But not all.

I hear that in Bundaberg it is not uncommon for backpackers seeking employment to be told that if they are not staying at a hostel, they will not be employed. Yet if they stay at a hostel, which in Bundaberg is not cheap, there is absolutely no guarantee that they will be picked by management for a job.

What is wrong with farmers being required to offer employment through the government employment agency rather than an exclusive arrangement with a particular hostel? Why should local people be refused picking jobs because they live locally sand don’t stay at hostels?