During the last two months, the Ministry for Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) has lead a review of temporary migrant exploitation in New Zealand. The aim is to reduce exploitation of temporary migrant workers including international students. The review had three areas of focus:

• preventing migrant exploitation

• protecting migrants from exploitation, and

• enforcing employment standards and immigration obligations.

We asked two notable organisations on what were their submissions as part of the review.

Migrant Workers Association (by Anu Kaloti)

• Prevent – migrant exploitation can only be prevented if work visas are not attached to employers. It can be argued that high staff turnover can be an issue for employers. Attaching work visas to occupations and/or regions of skill shortage could be an option.

• Protect – exploited migrants on temporary visas have little to no protection with respect to immigration when they whistle-blow because the visas are tied to the exploitative employment. MBIE’s proposal mentions a bridging visa. That would be a very welcome change as long as the exploited person has work rights. There is also a mention of a triage type function – we don’t need more bureaucracy to make navigation through MBIE for exploited migrant workers even more difficult. The Labour Inspectorate is still under resourced and hence I’d unable to deal with exploitation cases in a timely manner resulting in exploited workers having to either suffer in silence or leave New Zealand without justice.

• Enforce – penalties used to date are not a strong enough deterrent. MBIE’S proposal mentions stricter penalties and more personal liability for exploiting employers. That would be a step in the right direction. However, more proactive and preventative work with greater resources would be more beneficial.

Union Network of Migrants (by Mandeep Singh Bela)

• Detaching migrant workers’ visa from the employer. We suggest that visa can be attached to the skill or occupation of the migrant worker but not a particular employer.

• Allow individuals and representatives of individual workers to initiate proceedings – currently can only be initiated by a labour inspector or immigration officer.

• Proactively providing information to migrant workers about community advocacy i.e. migrant groups and unions.

• Requiring offshore education agents to be licensed so that they can be held accountable if they mislead international students coming to New Zealand

-TIN Bureau