Union officials have so far damaged working-class solidarity by backing the jailings and deportations, saying immigrants threaten wages of "our" workers.

In early February, 60 workers of various Asian nationalities were hauled away from their jobs in a raid by police and immigration officials on a construction site here. Three were summarily deported to Thailand, while four were thrown into prison to await deportation to China. A further 18 were given 42 days to appeal before they too face deportation. The remaining 35 workers held current work permits or were New Zealand residents.

"They were all numbered and herded up like animals whether they were guilty or not...plastic handcuffs and all," said a subcontractor who witnessed the raid.

The workers, said by union officials to be paid as little as NZ$6.50 per hour for up to 16 hours a day, were employed by subcontractors building million-dollar apartments in the upscale suburb of Remuera. The minimum wage is NZ$7.55. (NZ$1.00 = US 48 cents). No charges will be laid against the workers' employers.

A number of union officials support the action, portraying the government's attack as beneficial to workers in New Zealand.

Michael Jackson, secretary of the National Distribution Union (NDU), said "illegal" immigration "is a problem for New Zealand industry. The use of illegal immigrants is dragging wages and conditions down and making it harder to develop skills. Illegal labor like this is sending our skilled labor across the Ditch, the Tasman Sea between New Zealand and Australia."

Officials of the National Distribution Union, which organizes workers in the garment industry, last year pledged to "wage war against illegal workplaces," which they say threaten "legitimate" jobs in "legitimate" companies. Their comments followed a police and immigration raid last October on a clothing factory in West Auckland where seven Thai women were working. The workers were paid NZ$570 a month for 13-hour days and forced to live in the factory by their employer who had seized their passports.

The women, who have now all returned to Thailand, had phoned a telephone help line set up by police and the Human Rights Commission after a series of articles in the New Zealand Herald last June claiming large numbers of Thai women were being lured to New Zealand and forced to work as prostitutes.

Having generated public concern about the issue, the government sent cops and immigration officials to raid an Auckland brothel where Thai women were said to be working. A Thai woman with HIV was also deported as part of a scare campaign that such immigrants were contributing to the spread of AIDS. A civic meeting was held to organize city officials, police, immigration officials, and human rights workers to "identify and assist women wanting to get off the game" and be returned to their country of origin.  
 

'Fair labor' campaign

The police raid on the Auckland clothing factory prompted NDU official Jackson to say that the raid had "merely scratched the surface" and that hundreds of Asians were working in sweatshops in the city. Descriptions of similar workplaces followed in a Herald investigation, and in calls to a Labour Department phone line.

With newly elected Labour Party prime minister Helen Clark saying sweatshops are on notice from the government, a Labour Department investigation into "backyard factories" is now underway. In January alone 33 premises were raided in Auckland and removal orders served on some workers that were said to be working illegally. The campaign is also backed by the Green Party whose employment and industrial relations spokesperson, Susan Bradford, said before the election that sweatshops had to be stamped out.

An NDU official who subsequently visited a South Auckland garage where five Chinese women were employed sewing garments for a women's fashion label said, "New Zealand companies who have good health and safety conditions are being undercut by this type of activity." The union's clothing and industry sector secretary has proposed a joint union-employer "fair labor" campaign, where manufacturers and retailers are encouraged not to use underpaid workers or buy products from employers who do.

This stepped-up harassment of immigrant workers, especially from Asia, comes in the context of rapidly growing immigration to New Zealand from that region over the last 15 years. New Zealand's Asian population grew by 96 percent from 1986 to 1991 and by 71 percent from 1991 to 1996. People of Asian descent comprised 4.4 percent of the population in the 1996 census, while the longer-standing migrant population from the Pacific Islands comprised 4.8 percent. In Auckland, New Zealand's largest city, people of Asian origin make up 8 percent of the population and Pacific Islanders 12 percent. Maori, who are indigenous to New Zealand, make up 9 percent.

Employers in the garment industry, keen to cut costs in the face of competition from clothing manufacturers overseas, are drawing in immigrant workers who they hope will feel less secure to fight for their rights. Wages in the industry are low by New Zealand standards, and a growing number of workers are employed in even poorer conditions as outworkers, sewing on contract at home.

Many immigrant workers in the garment trade are already highly skilled, having trained as sewing machine operators or cutters in their own countries. A young Cambodian sewer at one Auckland factory that makes work clothing recognized the Phnom Penh garment factory where the New Zealand Herald reported 300 workers had rallied for better wages and conditions February 23 as one where she had previously worked.  
 

Revival of garment industry

The garment industry in New Zealand is undergoing something of a revival, with a shortage of skilled workers at present. It has been in a decline for 25 years and contracted sharply following deregulation and the reduction of tariffs in the late 1980s. Mass-market clothing manufacturers, unable to produce profitably in the face of cheaper imported products made overseas, either closed or went offshore.

Today, based on driving down costs and intensifying exploitation of the workforce, profitable operators are springing up in the production of knitwear, textiles, casual and work clothing, fashion garments, and other specialized products, especially for export. Unionization levels have halved since 1991.

Stepped-up immigration raids in recent weeks follow the introduction of legislation last October giving all visitors to the country 42 days from the date their entry permit expires to leave New Zealand or file an appeal to stay. If they do not, for whatever reason, they can be apprehended without notice, arrested, and deported immediately.

For example, a 21-year-old Tongan woman was deported after police raided her home February 21 and arrested her and her 19-year-old brother Viliami. She came to New Zealand last year to join the rest of her family living here. The family had been served removal orders in 1993. Viliami, a senior in high school, said his parents had stayed because they wanted a better life for their children. "They stayed for the kids, for the education--there was nothing in Tonga for us." Viliami now awaits an immigration minister's review of the case, or he too will be deported in one month.

Felicity Coggan is a member of the National Distribution Union  
 
 
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