workers galore ?

[rogespeed]

Seems the powers are concerned about a lack of suburban citizen willing workers from the big smoke happy to live remote from family and friends and civilised comfort , and slave for beer money on the orchards in primitive conditions , zombie fatique , grinding emotion privations 

https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/australia/urgent-call-for-aussies-to-get-off-the-couch/ar-BB15I0VI?oc...

The only way that will happen is if for the duration of pandemic conditions job seeker payments incl coronavirus suppliment is not penalised by earnings from the harvest trail , with accommadation eligiable for rent assistance - as with enough income , which will not be anywhere near the average national wage, maybe , just maybe , with just a little sense of self preservation , all impediments will be overcome 

[*kazumi*]

The problem is that the workers are usually provided by labour hire companies, and the only accomodation available is owned by the same rip off companies.  Give the fruit pickers rent allowance, and the company will just increase the rent.  The whole industry needs to be overhauled. 

[chameleon54]

Both the missus and myself worked in the fruit orchards of the Barossa Valley for a season when we where first married. We where 250 km. from home and stayed with friends. It wasn't any drama. In fact it was just another adventure and great life experience, meeting new people and trying something different. 

The orchardist used to get dole bludgers sent up from the northern suburbs of Adelaide by centrelink. Why dole bludgers ? because they where friggin useless, didn't want to work and would often " feel sick " by lunch time, never to be seen again. We all know plenty of people who are genuinely unemployed and willing to try any work they can get, but it really opened my eyes up to how some unemployed people are just plain rorting the system.

Any one who genuinely wants to work might find working in the vineyards and orchards is a rewarding experience if they are just willing to give it a go. 

[rogespeed]

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@chameleon54 wrote:

Both the missus and myself worked in the fruit orchards of the Barossa Valley for a season when we where first married. We where 250 km. from home and stayed with friends. It wasn't any drama. In fact it was just another adventure and great life experience, meeting new people and trying something different. 

The orchardist used to get dole bludgers sent up from the northern suburbs of Adelaide by centrelink. Why dole bludgers ? because they where friggin useless, didn't want to work and would often " feel sick " by lunch time, never to be seen again. We all know plenty of people who are genuinely unemployed and willing to try any work they can get, but it really opened my eyes up to how some unemployed people are just plain rorting the system.

Any one who genuinely wants to work might find working in the vineyards and orchards is a rewarding experience if they are just willing to give it a go. 

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Some new worker candidates not traditionally sporty , really need a toughning up simulated on-campus fascilities with step by step regime with psych supports , before they are thrown into crack of dawn galley slave work and remote living

With no fly-in fly-out scab labour or privation-proof back packer workers available  , there will be the need to draw upon the great unwashed to take up the slack 

Cert III in manual workplace direct labour   

[domino-710]

OK - got it - well....................

[rogespeed]

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@*kazumi* wrote:

The problem is that the workers are usually provided by labour hire companies, and the only accomodation available is owned by the same rip off companies.  Give the fruit pickers rent allowance, and the company will just increase the rent.  The whole industry needs to be overhauled. 

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I agree - the industry is not flexible and tends to have a fixation on group dynamics - they might have to get used to signing up more people of a lower output , like 4 times more , which should be ok as most work is piece meal anyhow 

Not much individual income but for pandenic conditions hopefully additional financial support like exempt from job seeker penalties  and tax free status , rent assistance for temp accommadtion ,and minimum reserve farm gate prices or wholesale 

Govt can negociate accommadtion and assist in new worker / family units built - worker need only harvest work for a month at a time out of four months with an option keeping their current residence in suburbia  

[chameleon54]

As well as the season of fruit picking mentioned I also regularly worked in shearing sheds away from home for several years. We stayed in caravans provided by the shearing contractor and at night and weekends would go surf fishing on remote unspoilt beaches or sit around camp fires, under the stars with the other shearers having a couple of quiet drinks. 

We where divided into several small teams which all came together at the last huge station shed to form one large shearing team. There was plenty of banter and friendly rivalry leading up to the merge and once together it was on. Highly competitive shearing races with tallies for both the smaller teams and the " guns " ( fastest shearer ) in each team highly valued. Plenty of friendly BS, a bit of skullduggery and very high wages for a young bloke.

It was one of the highlights of my life.

My son has worked on horticultural properties in the last couple of years operating heavy machinery and also earned a very good salary for a young bloke. While wages where only around $28 per hour for a kid who had just left school, they worked up to 15 hours per day meaning on a good day he brought home $350. A lot more than his school leaver mates working in the city or regional centres earned.

My shearer works the off season pruning vines. He is a real worker and is paid based on how many rows per day he prunes. He uses battery powered pruners, one in each hand and earns $400 - $500 per day.

A lot of the fruit industries are located close to cities or in major regional towns. There are usually plenty of shops and services around. Yes you have to actually work for your money ( something too many people don't know how to do ) but the weekly wages can be very good and the experiences both enjoyable and invaluable. I suspect most of the people who poo poo the idea of working in the agricultural industries have never actually done it and are just too plain lazy to give something different a try.

[*kazumi*]

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@chameleon54 wrote:

Both the missus and myself worked in the fruit orchards of the Barossa Valley for a season when we where first married. We where 250 km. from home and stayed with friends. It wasn't any drama. In fact it was just another adventure and great life experience, meeting new people and trying something different. 

The orchardist used to get dole bludgers sent up from the northern suburbs of Adelaide by centrelink. Why dole bludgers ? because they where friggin useless, didn't want to work and would often " feel sick " by lunch time, never to be seen again. We all know plenty of people who are genuinely unemployed and willing to try any work they can get, but it really opened my eyes up to how some unemployed people are just plain rorting the system.

Any one who genuinely wants to work might find working in the vineyards and orchards is a rewarding experience if they are just willing to give it a go. 

0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

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Not everybody has friends they can stay with, and in many cases the accommodation is something like 4 people to a room in rundown boarding house.  I also had an interesting experience trying to go fruit/veg picking as a student.  We were taken out miles away into the field, shown tiny corrugated iron shed with ONE bed frame.  Yes, just the metal frame with springs, and that was where 2 of us (18 years old girls) plus this old swagman supposed to sleep!  When we asked where can we wash, the grumpy farmer pointed to the muddy irrigation channel.  There was no mention of what we suppose to eat or drink  The old man had his swag, and bottle of water and some food.  We did not want to give up so easily, but by lunch time, we were hungry, thirsty, had our backs sunburned, and I had hives from the tomato plants all over my legs and arms.  So we gave what we picked to the old man, and hitched a ride back to civilisation.  I also used to know people who were professional  agriculture workers, traveling around with the seasons in their van, they slept and cooked in the van. 

The thing is that some people are good at math, some are musical, and some are capable of hard physical work.  You would not be calling person a bludger if they would not accept work in orchestra because they are not capable of playing at that level.  So why are people who are not capable to perform  physically demanding job being abused?  I have all my life done work around the farm that was bit too much; like lifting bags of horse feed into the feed bin, using huge chainsaw, lifting heavy logs, paving around the house with large slabs of granite....  Even now, I get regularly on my 4m ladder with my large and heavy hedge trimmer and trim my hedge down to about 3m.  But that does not mean I could possibly do such work all day.  I only do 10 - 20 minutes a day, and often have few days break when I over do it bit - I am now 70 something.  And I am paying dearly for having to have done all that heavy lifting with back problems, and having arthritis in all joints.  Forcing people to do work they are physically not suitable for is only going to result in injuries, and people ending up longterm unemployable.  Maybe we should insist that kids do more sport, test them at school not just for their knowledge but also physical fitness. 

[chameleon54]

Your experiences of 50 or 60 years ago makes entertaining reading, but just like offices sixty years ago or factories sixty years ago, they cant be compared to modern horticultural businesses today. A lot of fruit is now picked with hydroplat elevating platforms and pruning shears are either battery powered electric or pneumatic, reducing any physical exertion required to little more than that required by a shelf stacker in a supermarket or check out chick..

Fruit pickers now usually have their own transport and mobile phones. The OP,s link did not suggest that people be required to travel hundreds of kilometers from home, but rather commute 40 or 50 minutes to fruit growing areas near cities. No different to commuting 40 or 50 minutes the other way to go to work in city central offices.

In the case of my experiences in the Barossa Vally, the orchards where only 30 minutes drive from the northern suburbs of Adelaide where the " bludgers " would come for half a days work before driving off again because it was " too hard ".

As for young people not being able to physically do a days work....... piffle........ Sure your muscles might ache a bit at night for the first week, but a week or two in the fresh air with physical activity will see them much fitter and healthier than when they started and often their general mood and self esteem will be much better with regular work than simply sitting on the couch playing computer games.

Unfortunately too many Australians have lost any sort of work ethic. They want everything for nothing and have forgotten how to be self reliant, constructive, productive  individuals. Everyone who has not got genuine health issues is capable of picking up a strawberry and putting it in a bucket, or operating a pneumatic pruning shear. To suggest otherwise is to say that Australians are completely weak and feeble, much more so than people of other nationalities. The only thing that is weak and feeble about too many Australians is their attitude and work ethic.

[chameleon54]

Just a comment on your experience 50 - 60 years ago of horticultural industry accommodation consisting of a tin shed with one bed frame. That may very well have occurred 60 years ago and makes for an entertaining read, but  today's worker accommodation is completely different.

I am very familiar with seasonal worker accommodation in remote horticultural properties ( for reasons I wont go into ) and everything I have seen is of a very suitable standard. It either consists of modern transportable houses with one to two people per bedroom and shared communal facilities or small single bed, air conditioned transportable units similar to caravan parks with individual cooking and bathroom facilities.

We have all seen the horror stories on the news of groups of Asian workers bundled into clapped out old houses and bussed to worksites by greedy overlords and while this does occur, it certainly isn't the norm. I personally know of perhaps 20 horticultural properties and of those 20, the situation outlined above has only occurred once for a two or three year period. It came to the authorities attention and was shut down. The resulting fines and impositions forced the horticultural farm owner into bankruptcy and the business was sold to a highly regarded family business.

Like most other forms of agriculture, the days of small, dodgy fruit growing properties have long gone, with most properties now owned by large multi million dollar businesses with long term career programmes in place for reliable workers and upstream, supply chain processing facilities such as packing houses, supermarket contracts etc.