The current recruitment processes are examined with a particular interest in how they compare with the processes of the past. Is the process followed in the nature of a respectful interview or more in the nature of a line up described in section 2.31, or something else again? When workers wish to return to New Zealand the following year has there been a stringent evaluation process which would potentially exclude them from further work in New Zealand, and if not what kind of evaluation is used? Under what circumstances might workers be sent home without recourse to appeal?
This study has revealed, particularly in Vanuatu, a variety of arrangements over recruitment of workers. In broad terms, recruitment is government managed in Samoa and Tonga, whereas in Vanuatu private agents can be used. The third option is for employers to gain a license to recruit directly. Oliver gave an employer’s perception of the agents’ system:
It’s to their detriment, significantly to their detriment...When Vanuatu finally decided they should see me, I got pummelled; I don’t know how many agents came to see me, about ten, and who are these guys? Eventually we chose one...I’ve never had the confidence that they weren’t ripping the system off or that they could solve any issues or that they were administratively strong. (Oliver, 24-3-12)
Several New Zealand employers have gained recruitment licenses in Vanuatu. Les (interviewed 13-4- 12) described the licence as “a token gesture. Two hundred dollars and you have a license to recruit.” The license can be used to hire an employer representative (see section7.5) or in some cases to use existing employees to source other workers.
No evidence was found of crude physical inspections or line ups. In most cases, broad stereotypes were used to determine areas from which employers wished to access their workers, and
intermediaries (either licensed recruiters or team leaders in cases where a license is held) would choose the workers. In some cases only, an interview process was used.
Kate described the interviewing process with a local employer representative:
If its twenty staff we need we ask for sixty people. DR: These are serious interviews?
Yes we ask them about their family and if they have ever been out of the country and the non-alcohol policy...then we decide; it is myself and two others with me...we say to Sophie ‘can we have these [workers]?’ Then the medical. (Kate, 11-4-12)
This is an example of a mid-sized employer working through an employer representative [Sophie] in Vanuatu. Several smaller employers were found to have developed a relationship with one or two village communities and the decision on who comes to New Zealand was less formalised. While the employer may have the ultimate power to say who comes, a more negotiated process was at work. Deb sources workers from a single village area in Samoa:
Ben knows who we want first and I’ll say that to them now, if possible these ones first … like I didn’t want all three from one family... it’s not fair, but they over-rode that and as a family they had contributed a lot to get that church built. (Deb, 22-3-12)
In this instance an ongoing relationship between a small employer and a single village has led to a selection process which is negotiated between the employer and the extended family. In the following contrasting example, Poppy was representing a larger employer in Vanuatu:
We both stood up and said what our organisations did and what we expected; and we were going to take our return workers into the slots first, and from the others that were left ... really not in depth interviews... probably should have been more in depth; but a bit limited for time.
DR: But you did have an individual discussion?
Well they came up individually with passports and went through all that; you would check the passports to see who they had worked for before, and why they left. DR: What sorts of questions did you ask?
Well if they had worked for someone before I’d ask who did you work for and why did you leave; things like that.
DR: And if they hadn’t worked before?
Not too many questions; whether they were in the right physical fitness ... (Poppy, 4-7-12)
In this example, a pattern of employment is observable which has become more prevalent as the programme has matured. My survey indicated that about half of all employees in New Zealand in 2011 had been coming for over two years and the expressed goal of most employers interviewed was to achieve a semi-permanent work force requiring minimal training. Recruitment then became a matter of checking previous engagement with the RSE and trying to weed out those who were not considered satisfactory. Observing the physical condition of the new recruits stops short of a physical line up but also stops short of considering relevant experience in Vanuatu. In some cases very few new employees are sought:
Yes, 27 came back of 35 this year. We go to them first and then we will get Peter [agent] to look for, say, four lady packers perhaps or a forklift driver, or stackers, guys that are physically strong … (Joel, 21-6-12)
Several employers spoken to had developed preferences for recruiting from certain areas, with a developing preference for outer island recruitment:
In hindsight we did the wrong thing hiring Dick [prominent recruiting agent]. He drew them from [Port] Vila and I don’t know that was the right thing. That’s when we started going up to Santo [northern Vanuatu]. (Les, 13-4-12)
I was there for a day and half... flew in straight into Lenakel market [Tanna Island], worked seventeen hours that day...
DR: You were doing one on one interviews? J. and I were; yes. (Euan, 19-11-12)
Penelope (interviewed 20-11-12) carries out the recruitment exercise in Honiara for a large kiwifruit enterprise. The process involves giving a breakdown of requirements to an agent in Honiara prior to her visit upon which a team is handpicked. Some extras are included because of the high failure rate (about 30%) in medical screening, particularly due to hepatitis. Cabinet briefing papers (Secretary of Labour, 2006) show a strict regime of rejection on the basis of hepatitis, HIV, TB. The then Minister of Immigration, David Cunliffe, was given the option by officials of declining any applicants who tested postitive for HIV or a range of interventions to manage risk and chose the hard line approach96, even though it was pointed out that applicants for temporary visas would not be
declined on the basis of carrying HIV.
In contrast with the Canadian SAWP scheme there is no formal worker evaluation, although several employers take it upon themselves to write reports/evaluations of their RSE workers. The lack of a formal evaluation system increases the chance that someone rejected by one employer could successfully seek work with another. Practices on who to invite back and not to invite back vary considerably. One large labour contractor makes a practice of only inviting back the fast workers:
Of the 44 Vanuatu, maybe 8 won’t come back; just didn’t cut the mustard basically. We’ll invite those [other] 36 back and we’ll have a meeting before we go and say who is invited back based on performance. We are a contracting firm and [we want] the ones who do seven bins a day compared with someone who will do four... (Royden, 12-4-12)
Royden is chief executive of a large contracting company. His uncompromising focus on recruiting fast workers contrasted with the behaviour based decisions of several other respondents. Mitch (interviewed, 10-4-13) had been on recruiting visits to Vanuatu four times, and uses a simple points system for evaluation (1- no issues, 2- some issues, doubtful starter, 3- not allowed back) to
determine who is eligible to return. Some good workers have been given second chances over what is now ostensibly a strict no alcohol policy for all ni-Vanuatu workers. The enforcement of this policy is not normally about sending workers home, though this has happened in some cases, but in determining who is invited back. This behaviour-based approach is also followed by Les and Penelope:
There’ll be a list. Wages are a good indicator and attendance is a good indicator; and those people won’t come back ... simple; if you can’t come to work ... (Les, 13-4-12)
96 Mr Cunliffe agreed to take part in an interview for this research project, but withdrew upon becoming leader of the New Zealand parliamentary opposition in 2013.
[The firm] does evaluate employees’ work ethic, out of work behaviour, skills, health etcetera on a confidential and in-house basis regarding input for our recruitment program for the following year. (Penelope, pers. comm., 20-11-12)
The single decision of who is invited back carries with it the full weight of employer power, but this is not always exercised directly by the employer. The power to decide who returns has led to
accusations of corrupt practice:
We don’t have a formal evaluation going back to the islands; they have an informal process where they interview the team leader and ask for a report from the team leader and I don’t have much sway with that because the second year the team leader gave a report back to the island so the authorities blacklisted all the Tanna people but it was the team leader who got pulled up on a drunk driving charge...we’ve had some have bashed their partners; if we know it’s happening we won’t ask them back. (Joseph, 24-3-12)
One large employer initially stated that slow workers would be sent home if they could not make minimum wage within three weeks (“we can’t afford to top them up”) but went on to qualify his own statement:
Very seldom we send [a worker] home in the season, the theory being that a poor Island worker is better than a Kiwi and because they’ve just come out and never seen an apple tree in their life and to give them three weeks and send them home is a bloody tough call. So reality is we don’t do it very often. (Oliver, 24-3-12)
Apart from an inability to cope with slow workers (see below) nearly all cases of sending home involved some reference to the misuse of alcohol:
All I ask is that they be responsible... I ask them to recognise that if they get in bad activities any bad activities will reflect on your country; so if you do get enticed be aware of the consequence and we have to deal with issues all around alcohol and I get dragged in once it’s happened but I can’t ban them from going in to town.
DR: You haven’t sent home?
Heck yeah! Heaps. The first year about 15, then 10, this year no one I can think of... I don’t think I have actually. (Oliver, 24-3-12)
I had a phone call from our leaders about a disturbance at the lodge; some had been drinking and they’d been sick... We had warned them before that they could be sent home but they had been sick everywhere and denied they had been drinking; so one of our managers took two to the police station for a breath test and then they admitted they had so then they were sent home.
DR: It took an incident; not just a case of seeing a glass of beer. No, we wouldn’t send them home for that.
DR: The no alcohol policy acts as a fall back if there is an incident?
I took two home last Sunday... comatose in my car; one of them; he had an alcohol issue and the cops said they wouldn’t charge him if he went home so I bundled him in to my car and I had enough time to sober him up before we got to him to the airport. (Les, 13-4-12)
Not all employers feel empowered to conclude a worker’s employment and send them home. A small employer reported a Samoan worker who was arrested on a drink driving charge and went through the New Zealand court system. The orchard paid his fine and recovered the money from wages. This was not entirely an act of benevolence as the employer did not believe he could be sure of getting the worker on the plane rather than losing him to the (presumably) illegal custody of a New Zealand based family. This highlights a difference in position between workers from Vanuatu and the Solomons and those from Samoa and Tonga which have large diasporic enclaves and more options for gaining legal residence in New Zealand.
Recruitment decisions were influenced by employer perceptions or stereotypes about national or ethnic characteristics:
The average Tongan and average Samoan is 20% better than average Vanuatuan or Solomon islander; they are big; they are Polynesian as compared to micro or mela? One of the two ... tend to be shorter and not as physical; it’s around the 20% mark. But in saying that there are other attributes that the Solomons and Vanuatu shine in, their English is a damn sight better, they are cleaner, they are more respectful, they are pleasant. (Oliver, 24-3-12)
Thais, they motivate themselves and go fishing and shopping and they live on the smell of an oily rag and they stay out of trouble, stick to themselves and watch DVDs. The Tongans, again they have the most likelihood to cause issues but because now we have leaders who have been coming for so long and they tend to be family oriented and so they control their ability to have problems. (Royden, 12-4-12)
What we don’t understand well as New Zealanders, is the Vanuatuan way of treating their women folk is like a family cow, a bit of an asset, like that a lot of them don’t have the same mutual or equal respect ... the ones we choose are the ones we think are going to link in to support each other rather than the guy being dominant on the girl. (Joseph, 24-3-12)
I thought we would branch out into Santo or Malekula ... we have had the Tanna people through the joint arrangements and I find them a bit more aggressive to deal with than the other islands. Fighting amongst each other is quite common; I wouldn’t say aggressive but the other islands are more relaxed I think. (Poppy, 4-7-12)
It is not being suggested that these generalizations based on ethnicity are completely without foundation. However, recruitment decisions based on ethnic stereotypes seem to violate the anti- discriminatory employment practices which have guided New Zealand employment law and practice
in recent decades. Perhaps the key point about recruitment is that it is designed to generate a quasi- permanent labour force in New Zealand horticulture. All the recruitment decisions can be seen to line up with this key objective.