'Stood on and sworn at': Police investigate alleged assault on migrant workers

Thursday, 11 August 2022

Workers at a Central Otago farm told investigators their boss was threatened to “put them on a plane” when angry.

Police are investigating alleged assaults by an orchard owner against migrant workers in Central Otago, including an incident where a worker says he was made to lie on the floor, stood on, and sworn at.

Another Pacific Island worker alleged he had his ear pulled by the same man, while others say he regularly called the workers names including calling one man “lazy arse”.

There was an “atmosphere of fear” at the farm they were assigned to, the workers told investigators from the Human Rights Commission, but they didn’t know how to report their problems, and so they stayed quiet for six months, until they moved north earlier this year.

“We used to make a joke that when the cherries turn red, [boss] was also turning red,” an affidavit from one of the workers said. “In Bislama (the language of Vanuatu) the name we gave him was ‘red man’ because of his anger and aggression.”

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Equal Employment Opportunities commissioner Saunoamaali'i Karanina Sumeo has made a police complaint.

The criminal allegations were raised with senior police officers in Wellington last week by the office of Equal Employment Opportunities Commissioner Saunoamaali'i Karanina Sumeo, who travelled to Blenheim incognito to investigate the workers’ living and employment conditions in July.

Police confirmed to Stuff that district staff would be assessing the claims of common assault raised by the commission.

The workers at the centre of the allegations arrived in Alexandra from Vanuatu on the Recognised Seasonal Employers (RSE) scheme in November last year.

RSE workers were found to be living in cold, cramped rooms in Blenheim where they repeatedly fell sick.

The scheme allows for 16,000 workers to come from the islands to New Zealand each year to work for the $10 billion horticulture industry.

The workers – who are currently in Blenheim – were part of multiple groups from the Pacific Islands found by Sumeo to be living in substandard housing, including garages, run-down flats, or bulk units where they have little freedom or privacy.

Because of the cramped conditions the workers were repeatedly falling sick – including one man who was coughing blood – but were directed to go to work on the vineyards anyway, Sumeo found.

Sumeo wrote to Minister of Employment Relations and Workforce Safety Michael Wood with her findings, requesting an urgent meeting about the RSE scheme. In that letter, Sumeo said she would also be speaking to police.

“I consider that some of the conduct with some of the most vulnerable cohorts that I witnessed could warrant a criminal investigation,” Sumeo wrote.

All the criminal allegations were against a single employer, who was not named in the affidavit seen by Stuff. He and his family own a farm which grows cherries, peaches, nectarines and apricots, according to the worker.

In the document, the worker describes how the newly-arrived workers heard from other staff on “day one” that the boss was aggressive, especially when picking began.

Sumeo found the workers had been charged for PPE that should have been provided by employers.

He had a target for each worker of 40 buckets of fruit per day, and workers were not allowed to go home until they had reached that number, the affidavit said.

“There were times when we had to help the person at the end of the day who had not met this amount. All the men would just pick buckets to help those who had fallen short of the target,” he said. “Sometimes it was me who fell short. The new ones were especially slow and needed help. This happened most days.”

The worker said he was making $1600 a fortnight, and was able to send money home to Vanuatu.

While picking, the boss would regularly yell at the men and call them names, the worker said.

The worst incidents happened when one of the men hid from the boss. The boss was looking for him and became angry, the worker said. That’s when he went to the dormitory and was yelling, telling the workers he “wanted to put everyone on a plane home”.

“One of the boys … was standing beside a table. The boss grabbed [him] by his ear and pulled him by his ear so that his head was pulled down on top of the table. The boss was swearing at him as he did so,” he said.

“After that he called one of the other boys over to him, a boy named BB. He made BB lie down on the floor and [boss] then put his foot on top of BB back. He was swearing at him as he did this. He called BB a ‘f…… c….’. “

The worker said when the men told him about the incidents he wanted to report the boss but he did not know where to go.

“There was also a fear that he would send workers home back to Vanuatu and that as a result they would not be allowed to return to New Zealand,” he said.

“I also did not want to cause a problem for the agent or for the farm. So I stayed quiet.”

The worker said when they left the farm, the boss told them none of the men were welcome back the following year.

The group from Vanuatu is due to leave New Zealand next week to go home.