Minimum wage recommendation for farm workers would cruel horticulture

At the request of the Australian Workers Union, who lodged a claim last December, the full bench commission investigated claims of on-farm worker payment abuse and delivered its findings late on Wednesday, recommending the minimum wage be paid as a floor to all full, part-time and casual workers employed under the Horticultural Award.

Fifth generation NSW Riverina orange grower Johanna Brighenti-Barnard, Sumar Produce at Myall Park and Lake Wyangan, said the recommendation, if approved, could force her family to turn their back on any idea of expansion and possibly look to broadacre farming instead of growing navel oranges for the table.

"This year has been particularly challenging with the lack of containers for export and shipping costs that have jumped $200 a tonne but deliver a poorer service. If there is to be a minimum wage on top of this for our harvest then there is no incentive. Our costs would just blow out. They would be uncontrollable."

"If we pay by the hour our output will drop, costs per tonne will increase and our harvest window will increase. We will need to employ even more people to supervise, which would increase our costs and put further stress on the business in our busiest and most stressful times of the year" she said.

"Where's the incentive for the fastest pickers when the slowest will likely end up earning more per kilo picked than the fastest? How is that productive and how is that fair? We will have to employ more people and in the end the consumers will lose out."

IN OTHER NEWS:

NSW Central West cherry grower and chairman of the NSW Farmers' Horticulture Committee Guy Gaeta, Orange, said the extra costs cannot be worn by farmers.

"In a perfect world we would pass the costs on but we don't live in a perfect world. If we can't pick our crop in time we miss markets. We're price takers, not like other industries. We are at the mercy of the supermarkets. We can't afford to pay someone to sit on their ass."

Mr Gaeta said the best pickers working on his cherry orchard on volcanic soil under Mt Canobolas at Orange have taken home in excess of $500 for the day while other older workers, grey nomads in particular, were content to go at their own pace and pick much less. Mr Gaeta fears those slower workers would not get a job while the incentive of the gun crew might be softened knowing they had a payment floor under their belt.

"There are no winners out of this," he said. "The unions are not saving anybody. We can't afford minimum wage."

Mr Gaeta said a picker on minimum wage would typically pick 5 lugs of cherries while double that is the piece work equivalent, which makes the worker about $205 a day. Top pickers can make twice that and as much as $600 in a day."

One of his workers Facebooked from Italy that the money saved picking cherries has been put down as a deposit on a unit.

"Those kind of things are nice to hear," he said.

"But under this plan we will lose that incentive and the harvest will take longer to pick."

Managing slow staff, as recommended by the fair work commission, will fall to the farmer.

"Introducing a minimum wage floor will provide an incentive to reduce the current cohort of unproductive workers, thus increasing productivity," said the summary of decision.

However, Mr Gaeta says that concept doesn't make sense in the field.

"Our workers do what they like. They come and go. We can't be out there keeping an eye on them. Maybe the market should pay us a minimum price per box? But that's not going to happen. No one gives a damn about us."