Employers urged to care for migrants

Press, 29 July 1977, Page 17

Employers urged to care for migrants

Employers of migrant workers must take a closer interest in the lives of their workers and help them to adjust to their new environment, says the southern branch secretary of the Labourers’ Union (Mr W. B. Brown). He is particularly concerned about Mr Justice Speight’s comment in Auckland that many Pacific Island immigrants were unsuited to the New- Zealand environment, and should not be in New Zea>and without supervision from their families or elders. “The recent court case relating to a Tongan

■worker in Auckland highlights once more the need for the Government to take a very close look, perhaps by' way of a Royal Commission of inquiry, into the whole area of migrant workers in New Zealand,” said Mr Brown. “Employers must be reminded again by this tragic example that labour is just not an economic commodity, on which to build a profitable business, but is people who have traditions, cultural attitudes, and feelings that contribute towards making them a human.” For these people there needed. to be a moral and

ethical stance, when engaging such labour, looking after not only the worker’s pocket but his well-being away from the work-place. This was the price employers had to be compelled to pay either by legislation or conscience if they chose to select their work-force from New Zealand’s Pacific neighbours. Migrant labour was being exploited but very little was being done to help migrants adjust to their new way of life outside working hours, said Mr Brown. “Perhaps it is the environment to which they come which is wrong,” he said.