As Queenstown's worker accommodation shortage continues to bite, local members of the business community, developers, and members of the Queenstown Lakes District Council are increasingly getting on board with the planning and creation of some form of employer-owned or leased accomodation for local workers.
Queenstown Business Chamber of Commerce head of business growth Sharon Fifield in an interview with the ODT, said of the problem, "Attracting more staff is proving difficult due to a lack of available housing. It's great to see so many businesses providing worker accommodation, but there is still quite a gap in supply".
According to a Mountain Scene article, the Queenstown Business Chamber of Commerce is currently "Organising workshops to help employers wanting to provide worker accommodation." These workshops will involve "An accountant specialising in property tax, and representatives from MyHR, Queenstown Lakes Community Housing Trust, Queenstown’s council and Core Logic", though unsurprisingly given that it is a chamber organised initiative, no union or worker representatives or speakers seem to have been included. Fifield does point out though, in another article on the housing crisis, that "Being an employer and landlord is “not necessarily an ideal position to be in”.
In all the haste to try and solve the crisis, few people seem to have stopped to ask whether employer-run accommodation is actually a good thing.
In all the haste to try and solve the crisis, few people seem to have stopped to ask whether employer-run accommodation is actually a good thing for either the town itself or the workers they're hoping to house. Luckily, New Zealand has a perfect example of what can go wrong when workers, particularly vulnerable migrants, are housed by their employers, in the Recognised Seasonal Employers (RSE) scheme.
The RSE scheme has been investigated after reports of overcrowded and poor living conditions for some workers, following complaints revealed by Stuff about accommodation, pay and care issues. In a follow up article, Stuff interviewed former police detective Sean Hatwell, who previously worked in Thailand investigating cases of women who were trafficked for sex work. Now back in New Zealand, he claimed unscrupulous employee practises also happen in Aotearoa. “Modern slavery exists here too,” he said. “We have a large migrant workforce, set to increase. In some industries they can be exploited with poor wages and conditions. “It is a hard to investigate, as often victims are unwilling to speak out as they need the work or have been promised a visa, residency or other things.” Hatwell said industries in which migrant workers could be potentially vulnerable include horticulture, construction, hospitality and beauty salons.
“Modern slavery exists here too... We have a large migrant workforce, set to increase. In some industries they can be exploited with poor wages and conditions... Often victims are unwilling to speak out as they need the work or have been promised a visa, residency or other things. Industries in which migrant workers could be potentially vulnerable include horticulture, construction, hospitality and beauty salons."
A report by the Equal Employment Opportunities Commissioner has found major gaps allowing a systemic pattern of human rights abuses. As reported by RNZ, those included unreasonable pay deductions, denial of personal and cultural freedoms, poor access to healthcare, and grossly inadequate housing. Equal Employment Opportunities Commissioner Saunoamaali'i Karanina Sumeo told Morning Report the treatment of workers was distressing to witness, and described the exploitation of RSE Pacific agricultural workers as "Bordering on modern day slavery".
The Commissioner made 13 recommendations to the government, the first being an urgent review of the RSE scheme before the 2023 season, in which 3000 additional RSE workers could be coming into the country. Others included removing the tie-in of RSE worker visas to a single employer, requiring employers to use standard form offers of employment and contracts containing terms which complied with New Zealand law, improving enforcement of accommodation standards, requiring rents be reasonable in relation to wages earned and ensuring workers are able to use employment protections and redress mechanisms available to all New Zealanders.
These recommendations should give us some serious pause, and should result in the groups advocating for or supplying employer accomodation in Queenstown to provide some guarantees about how workers can be protected.
While it is clear that Queenstown does have some good employers, who are currently providing worker accomodation without issues, disgruntled local workers are increasingly sharing horror stories about situations where this is not the case. The Queenstown Workers Collective hopes to help bring some of these stories to light, and will continue to advocate for union and worker representation at all levels of planning and compliance around employer housing.
The people who actually keep this town running deserve to live in decent, healthy, warm homes. If we wish to hold out a vision for more than serf-like dystopian over-crowded, sub-standard worker dormitories existing alongside a town of almost unimaginable wealth and privilege, workers must have a voice.