Free the Tamil asylum seekers

January 18, 2010 by

People protested outside the Australian consulate in Auckland, on 18 January, as part of an international day of action to support the Tamil Asylum Seekers who have spent 100 days on a boat in Indonesia in appalling conditions.

A protest organiser  spoke of how 254 Tamil Asylum Seekers refused to leave the boat for fear of being locked up in an Indonesian detention centre or being deported back to Sri Lanka.

Returning to Sri Lanka is not an option, as one man who had returned to see his ill mother had been thrown in prison, without charges being laid, and is still locked up.

“The refugees are rightly demanding that they be given basic human rights and that Australia, as a signatory of the UN Refugee Convention, adhere to its international responsibilities” Priyaksha said. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Australia, Free Trade, Immigration & Open Borders, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Tamil

Wednesday’s at the WEA: Migrant Workers and the RSE Scheme

September 1, 2009 by

Introduced in 2006 the Recognised Seasonal Employer (RSE) scheme provides temporary work visas for workers from the Pacific to fill vaccencies in the horticulture and viticulture industries. According to NZAid, New Zealand’s international aid and development agency, the scheme was “designed with the development of Pacific countries and New Zealand’s horticulture and viticulture industries at its heart.” Drawing on field research done by Swedish political scientist Lina Ericsson this presentation will give an insight into the experiences of migrant workers on kiwifruit farms in the rural North Island, while critically examining the RSE scheme in the context of New Zealand’s relationship with the nations of the south Pacific on the issues of trade, development and immigration.

Speaker: Byron Clark
5:30pm, Wednesday September 2
WEA, 59 Gloucester St (map)

Filed Under: Immigration & Open Borders, Pacific

New Zealand government’s RSE scheme: “Brutal racist oppression”

June 14, 2009 by

By Don Franks

In a press release on 4 June 2009 the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions deplored the Government’s removal of the minimum wage protection for workers on the Recognised Seasonal Employer (RSE) scheme.

“There have been significant examples of unauthorised and unfair deductions from RSE workers’ pay even under the existing regulations,” said Wagstaff. “Relaxing the minimum wage rule will only result in more blatant exploitation of already vulnerable workers as unscrupulous employers shift costs onto them.”

“Allowing employers to make deductions which will reduce pay rates below the minimum of $12.50 per hour will significantly increase exploitation of RSE workers and undermine the credibility of the scheme”, said CTU Vice-President Richard Wagstaff.

Richard Wagstaff is dead right about the exploitation, but from a workers point of view, RSE has no credibility to be undermined.

The New Zealand Labour Department says:

“The RSE scheme facilitates the temporary entry of overseas workers, mainly from the Pacific, to plant, maintain, harvest and pack crops in the horticulture and viticulture industries to meet labour shortages in order to remain competitive with the rest of the world.” [Read more…]

Filed Under: Immigration & Open Borders, Industrial Relations Legislation, NZ Imperialism

“Equal rights for migrants”

April 25, 2009 by

In a very encouraging development amidst the recent nationalist statements made by some union leaders, over 100 migrant workers, unionists and migrant advocates met in Auckland in April to discuss the way forward.

 Dennis Maga spoke on behalf of Migrante Aotearoa, a trade union-supported project that actively defends migrant workers. He discussed two widely-reported cases where employers had made dozens of workers redundant, but retained migrants on work permits. Migrante is concerned that the right wing backlash unleashed in the wake of such cases could further marginalise migrants, and in future, migrant workers may be prioritised for redundancy. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Immigration & Open Borders

Victory: Ali Panah gains refugee status

April 13, 2009 by

Rebecca Broad The Spark April 2009

Iranian asylum seeker Ali Panah won refugee status in February 2009, after a protracted and public struggle, which began in mid 2007.

Panah was part of a larger group of Iranian immigrants who came to New Zealand as either refugees or asylum seekers, who were denied residency, and locked up inside Mt Eden remand center indefinitely. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Immigration & Open Borders
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