‘All fake’
Chinese tradies sold a dream, and then ripped off
Some migrants lured here by the promise of lucrative jobs instead have their wages stolen and their rights trampled, report Steve Kilgallon and Lucy Xia.
Zhao* eats an egg a day with rice porridge. It’s all he can afford. He’s owed $14,000 in wages by various employers and was left without income for a work-related injury, for which he received no compensation.
It’s not the return Zhao and his wife expected when they invested their life savings – about $80,000 – into moving to New Zealand after being promised highly-paid, secure work in our booming building sector.
Zhao’s tale of disappointment is familiar to employment advocates who’ve seen a string of migrant Chinese construction workers complaining they’ve been ripped off.
The advocates – May Moncur, Matt McCarten, Nathan Santesso and Paul Yang – say the sector is rife with the exploitation of skilled Chinese migrant workers brought in on temporary visas before the Covid-19 crisis closed borders.
Since 2010, the number of Chinese nationals arriving on temporary work visas has risen from 16,020 a year to 22,192 in 2019, aided by a specific Chinese Skilled Workers’ Visa. The arrival of tradies has been fuelled by the construction boom and an industry-wide shortage of 60,000 workers.
The New Zealand Chinese Building Industry Association estimates 50 per cent of all residential construction work in Auckland is being undertaken by Chinese firms.
It’s easy to see why the Chinese workers came here: typically recruited from rural provinces by an agent, they are promised a steady, high-income job, a long-term visa and the potential of permanent residency. ‘‘It’s all fake,’’ says one worker, Yu*, who has overstayed the visa that cost him nearly $40,000 and is now working 66-hour weeks for $20 per hour cash.
Another, Qian*, who has had wages withheld by four different employers, says: ‘‘They say it’s a worker’s paradise. It’s bulls .... ’’
The reality for many is they arrive to find (at least, initially) no work, or less secure, poorly-paid work and with visas they find hard to renew. Many end up in casualised day labour jobs – sometimes advertised on the Chinese social media platform WeChat.
While they work on major construction projects such as five-star hotels, they are hired and paid by sub-contractors several tiers down the food chain from the major firm holding the construction contract.
‘‘Our problem right now is the subcontracting model,’’ says Dennis Maga, general secretary of First Union. ‘‘The big players can pass on the responsibility to the sub-contractors, and say that’s where the problem is.’’
Like other workers, Zhao paid his premium in cash to an agent who boasted of New Zealand contacts and promised there would be no issues working on a visitor visa, which he would arrange.
But since arriving from the coastal city of Nantong in late 2018, the only help Zhao says he has received is an airport pickup and initial work in a plastics factory, which soon went bust. Wang’s local contact and his Chinese agent both blocked him.
Since then, he has moved between cash jobs on residential construction sites and renovations, with no contract, no minimum entitlements and in some cases, no wages at all, while his wife works for minimum wage as a live-in nanny.
‘‘I just need a salary, I won’t ask for too much,’’ says Zhao, who has 20 years of construction experience. He has never heard of holiday pay and was under the impression that ‘‘only local residents can get these kinds of benefits’’.
Zhao, whose work in 2020 was further disrupted by the pandemic lockdowns, is still far from