A Queenstown Workforce Steering Group has been set up identify what needs to happen across the district to create a sustainable workforce. But it's a group lacking one key element - voices from the actual workers being 'supported'.
According to a report in Mountain Scene, "Members of the steering group include Destination Queenstown and Lake Wānaka Tourism, Ignite Wānaka, the council’s economic development team, the Regional Skills Leadership group lead, and Ministry of Social Development, which is funding it."
The Queenstown Workers Collective have asked the Ministry of Social Development for more information about how much funding they have provided, and why no worker or union organisations or voices have been included. A ministry spokesperson agreed with our concerns, and has put us in contact with their Southern office to gain more information. However, these kind of information requests can take some time.
The steering group appears to be a creation of the Queenstown Business Chamber of Commerce - hardly a neutral party when it comes to local wages and conditions. Chamber chief executive Sharon Fifield said that the workforce strategy "Will also help with lobbying central government in future", which perhaps gives a clear indication of the group's purpose. Indeed, they and organisations such as Hospitality NZ and the NZ Restaurant Association have been lobbying hard ever since the COVID lockdowns to convince the government to supply local businesses with more cheap, temporary, easily exploitable labour from overseas backpackers and migrants in order to keep wages and conditions as low as possible. This seems somewhat at odds with the steering group's purported goal to "create a sustainable workforce". But this is hardly surprising - the chamber is doing what it does - representing the interests of its members. What is surprising is that they have been bold enough to successfully seek ministry funding for this, and that so far, media have failed to question the obvious bias of the steering group's makeup.
Another perplexing issue is that there is already a government funded workforce strategy being developed - the Better Work Action Plan. The group behind this strategic planning include both business and union representatives. Why is Queenstown reinventing the wheel instead of contributing to an already established and far more representative model? If indeed Queenstown's Workforce Steering Group is more than another business lobby group that has cynically taken government funding, we look forward to their explanations and willingness to include the voices and concerns of real workers in the region in their future meetings.
More soon...