Labour inspectors will visit farms later this year.
Farmer employers on this list are stood down for up to two years from sponsoring visas to recruit migrant workers, she explained to Dairy News.
About 160 employers have been stood down since the list was introduced by Immigration NZ and the Labour Inspectorate in April 2017. But only three of those were dairy farmers.
“However if that list had been in place during their last dairy operation an additional seven dairy farmers would have found themselves on stand-down,” says Gardiner.
Employers are stood down for clear breaches of employment standards.
Gardiner says the inspectorate hopes farmers will continue to make gains in meeting employment standards “and when we visit dairy farms later on this year [we will hope to see] they have records in place and are meeting all their obligations”.
“In that way we can keep the number of farmers on that list small,” she says.
“We believe more farmers and the industry as a whole are taking greater notice; they are realising they must take employment law seriously.
“Most farmers want to do the right thing, but for those choosing to ignore the clear standards in place, or attempting to exploit their employees, these penalties (stand-down) will mean they face serious consequences, so they need to get it right.”
Farmers can keep on top of most requirements by keeping good records, Gardiner says.
“The real issue we are seeing with dairy farmers is time-keeping records. Obviously in dairy farming the hours tend be fluctuating and quite long during different periods of the year.”
Also essential is having written employment agreements in place, she says.
“Those are the two main areas in which we see farmers falling down. [But] there are plenty of tools to help them get this right.”
The websites employment.govt.nz or business.govt.nz employment agreement builder will help farmers develop a compliant agreement or they can talk to the industry bodies who have quite a few tools as well.
“There is new technology out there which makes it easier for farmers to keep good records and particularly good records of hours. In that way they can ensure their employees are receiving the minimum wage for every hour worked.
“Good time sheet apps have been developed that are working really well.”
Farmers should aim to be best-practice employers, she says.
“Part of being a good employer is ensuring that everyone on your farm is getting all their minimum employment entitlements.
“This requires keeping good wage, time, holiday and leave records, compliant employment agreements, and paying your employees all their entitlements such as for working on public holidays.
“Our most recent investigation found 28% of the farms we visited were failing to meet their record keeping obligations, resulting in $11,000 in fines; we want to see farmers do better this year.
“While this was an improvement on our previous visits, no farmer should be failing to meet these basic and long-standing requirements of New Zealand employment law,” Natalie Gardiner says.
