Young workers arriving in Queenstown with a Working Holiday Visa (WHV) are coming in cold - with little or no information about NZ employment law, what wages or conditions to expect, and little protection from exploitation by unscrupulous employers.
Clementine Gallois, a WHV holder from France is currently working two jobs in town - one in a retail store and another in a restaurant/bar, but has also worked for a local hotel. While she hasn't personally had any "bad" experiences with NZ employers, Gallois did leave her first job because of "a lack of flexibility".
She told the Queenstown Workers Collective that finding a job was the easy part. "It only took me a few hours to find a job, I looked on Seek and tried to find ideal jobs, but I realised that it was only jobs in hospo, tourism and retail that were available - not what I originally had in mind. I quickly realised that I wouldn't be building my career in Queenstown in my field (business engineering & sales). So then I walked around town and made my decisions about what I saw/heard doing this."
"I only knew about the minimum wage because I looked it up myself. But no idea about my rights, like break times, leave entitlements or employment contracts. I only realised what wages to be aiming for after being here for a while and seeing what people were offering."
However, Queenstown is a tough place to live for workers, as Gallois soon found out. "The hardest part is finding accommodation, so basically you need to find a place to live before you find a job here, then you try and figure out your schedule and transportation based on that." Gallois ended up sharing a room in a shared flat with another worker from France in order to make the costs more affordable. She is one of the lucky ones actually able to find accommodation - other are facing homelessness, or are resorting to camping or huge commutes. Many are simply leaving the region.
Other problems also emerged. "If you're lucky, you’ll be living somewhere with transportation so you can go to work, otherwise you’ll have to try and get a car but the market here is saturated and expensive. I thought I could rely on buses, but because they have a shortage too, they only come about once an hour, but aren’t reliable because there's often an issue with one of them and they can be cancelled just at the last minute. So it’s hard to be sure that you can get to work on time or get home at all!"
"I feel like every time you go to find a job, people try and use your lack of knowledge against you, in order to keep your wages and conditions as low as possible, so you always have to fight for yourself."
Concerningly, WHV holders are given very little information about working in NZ that could protect them from exploitation. Gallois said that she had received "Pretty much no information" about wages, conditions or NZ employment law. "I only knew about the minimum wage because I looked it up myself. But no idea about my rights, like break times, leave entitlements or employment contracts. I only realised what wages to be aiming for after being here for a while and seeing what people were offering." This situation drastically weakens WHV holders' position in job applications and negotiations and is a classic recipe for exploitation. "I feel like every time you go to find a job, people try and use your lack of knowledge against you, in order to keep your wages and conditions as low as possible, so you always have to fight for yourself."
WHV holders, in France at least, do have a website that contains a "400 page guide that provides you with basic info on different fields such as what to see in NZ, accommodation tips, how to rent a place, what banks to go to, which supermarkets to shop at, which business to use..." If that sounds more like advertising than independent, reliable advice, Gallois agrees. "Yes it is. They have partnerships, and sometimes discounts. So flight tickets, banks, car insurance, [other] insurance are all sponsored. They are often the cheapest, but all WHV people here basically use the ones recommended."
Facing this lack of official information and support, WHV holders are turning to their own ad-hoc communities to share information and advice. "Facebook groups - there's a lot, like a little community that helps each other, WhatsApp, foreign speaking strangers. You can recognise your peeps!" It's in this context that the Queenstown Workers Collective have set up mySlice, a website that enables local and migrant workers to anonymously share information about Queenstown wages and conditions, to view the data in ways that allow them to have a stronger hand in job applications and negotiations, and to access resources that every worker in NZ should have at their disposal - which union to join, easy to understand information about NZ employment law, and what their legal entitlements are.
"You should know average wages so you know what to expect and what to fight for. If you go in without knowing, you will be offered a much lower rate!"
As the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment's Better Work Action Plan explains, "Low pay and poor conditions [are a] barrier to attracting and retaining a stable workforce", so workers need to be "consistently treated well and can easily identify which businesses to work for and where they'll find rewarding work." It is only when workers are armed with this knowledge, that they can be better protected from exploitation, and mySlice is certainly aiming to be a useful tool for local workers such as Gallois to be able to use to empower themselves.
So does Gallois have any advice for other WHV holders coming into Queenstown? "Do some research prior to departing, know what kind of jobs are available in the cities you plan on going to. And to start looking at accommodation and transportation in advance to plan around. You should have an idea of average wages so you know what to expect and what to fight for. If you go in without knowing, you will be offered a much lower rate!" And expect some cultural differences too. "Any fifteen year old boy will have a mullet, and will keep it until their twenties." Très amusant!