The National Farmers Federation (NFF) is proposing farm workers be paid partly in fruit and vegetables and let me be the first to say this shit is bananas. I get lettuce is expensive rn but it’s not the kinda green that’s gonna pay the bills.
The proposal suggests including accommodation, food and now produce into “non-monetary benefits” which employers would be able to take into account when registering workplace pay deals.
It’s a way to shake up the “better off overall test” for pay in the agricultural sector. The test is used by the Fair Work Commission to ensure anyone getting paid under the award rate ends up “better off” without the cash. Basically, if employers offer workers fruit they could say look, your pay is lower than the award because you get all these other cool perks! Wow!
As someone who’s suffered through too many office pizza parties while being paid peanuts I simply cannot with this.
The NFF will present the proposal at the Federal Government’s jobs and skills summit in September and call to “streamline” pay deals. The summit will bring together unions and industry groups who’ll discuss how to boost productivity and pay.
NFF president Fiona Simson told Guardian Australia if the proposal landed, all pay deals including those with fruit would have to be “transparent” and “considered upfront” — yes, I would think so — and that produce was a pretty normal thing to include in non-monetary benefits.
“It just makes sense to be making sure you can contemplate the particular nature of the farming business and the benefits that are provided to the workforce [in bargaining],” she said.
“There’s a lot of opportunities there, particularly with the cost of living at the moment, those sorts of expenses can be very high for people.
“Providing those things as benefits or part of salaries is something that makes sense to consider for people working in rural and regional Australia.”
But the Australian Workers Union’s national secretary Daniel Walton had some … thoughts.
“The days of vulnerable workers being ‘paid’ with food instead of money should be long behind us … if you work in Australia you deserve the Australian minimum wage and not a cent less,” he told Guardian Australia.
He said some jobs should come with benefits like accommodation, that was obvious, but these should never “be considered some kind of ‘service’ for which workers are expected to forgo pay”.
Amen.
