Govt develops policy framework to address issue of mistreatment of Fijian seasonal workers

The government has recently developed a policy framework to try and address the issue of Fijian seasonal workers working in Australia under the PALM scheme being mistreated.

This was highlighted by Minister for Employment Agni Deo Singh while officiating at the Pacific Conference of Churches’ Consultation on Pastoral and Practical Care for Migrant Workers at the Pacific Theological College today.

Singh says his recent trip to Australia was a great experience for him as he got to learn the issues and challenges that the employers and the workers are faced with one of which is the superannuation of the workers.

He says they have met with some of the employers and the Australian Labour Minister, and have examined and talked about this issue that needs to be addressed as soon as possible.

Singh says there is also a taxation issue as far as the remittance is concerned in terms of the superannuation that they have been deducting and says there has been a 35 percent taxation which is found to be very unreasonable.

He further says with this, the Fiji National Provident Fund has decided to open a branch in Australia to get the superannuation of the seasonal workers going and deductions to be remitted directly to FNPF.

The Minister says the government is in the process of drafting a new Memorandum of Agreement with the Australian government as they are now also very particular about the kind of accommodation that our workers are going to have when they are working in Australia.

Singh says the employers will have to prove to the Ministry of Employment that they have decent accommodation and reasonable expenses prepared for our workers before they are deployed to work in Australia.

He says these processes should have started a few years ago but somehow this did not get the attention of the Minister of the previous government and now the current government is working in overdrive to address these issues.

Singh says these challenges are having serious social and economic ramifications impacting eventually every aspect of our lives and communities.

According to the Pacific Conference of Churches, concerns were raised about workers not being well aware of the laws in Australia and that some pre-departure briefings between the seasonal workers, the government and the employees need to be relooked at.

They say there has been a lack of consultation with the communities and civil society when these programs were drawn up.

The Pacific Conference of Churches says the conditions of the migrants and seasonal workers are a growing pastoral concern for Pacific Island diaspora communities who hear reports of harsh employment conditions and allegations of mistreatment and some of these treatments would fall under the category of modern slavery and forced labour.

In the past 24 months, more than 260 workers from the Pacific absconded and in the last 12 months, the numbers have increased dramatically to more than 1,150.

According to the Pacific Labour Facility, Fiji was ranked 3rd in the number of absconding and in 2020, Fiji had the most number of workers missing work with the highest number being a young Fijian male who missed 29 days of work on sick leave.

The PCC is currently having a 4-day consultation to look at this issue of seasonal workers being mistreated and how they can address this issue.