Source document: https://docs-lawep.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/1697629244458.pdf (Australia)
Joint Standing Committee on Immigration PO Box 6021 Parliament House Canberra ACT 2600 Email: jscm@aph.gov.au February 21, 2016 Inquiry into Seasonal Labour Programme Response to Submission by the Justice and International Mission Unit, Synod of Victoria and Tasmania, Uniting Church in Australia (UCA) to the Inquiry into the Seasonal Worker Programme December 2015 (SWP) Preface These submissions are made in response to the submissions of the Justice and International Mission Unit of the Synod of Victoria and Tasmania Uniting Church.
SLS has endeavoured to address all of the Unit’s submissions as directly as possible despite the fact that many of the Unit’s claims are based upon hearsay and are significantly lacking in detail.

Background Seasonal Labour Solutions Pty Ltd (“SLS”) operates an established labour recruitment and placement business under the Seasonal Workers Programme.
SLS is proud to have placed more than 400 workers in work at over 22 locations, assisting workers and clients and addressing the acute labour shortage faced by Australian primary producers.

I am the director of SLS and have strong ties to Vanuatu.

I lived in Vanuatu for eight years and understand many local dialects.

My wife was born in Vanuatu and assists me in the business.

My wife is available for contact by workers 24 hours per day.
My wife and I have always regarded the welfare of our staff as our highest priority.

SLS has a deep commitment to the people of the Republic of Vanuatu, the welfare of our staff and to the SWP.

My father-in-law is a respected Elder of the Presbyterian Church and my Uncle is a Government appointed proponent for workers’ rights.
Page 1 of 9 Inquiry into the Seasonal Worker ProgrammeSubmission 44 SLS enjoys an excellent relationship with the Department of Labour in Vanuatu and is the only foreign company to hold an Approved Employer status with the Vanuatu Government.

I have a deep awareness and understanding of the financial, economic and social conditions the people of Vanuatu endure on a day-to-day basis, and my company has worked to try to help alleviate their plight.
We are also proud to enjoy an excellent reputation with our many clients in Australia who continue to refer SLS to other farm owners and increase their staff levels year on year.

SLS constantly strives to improve its systems and procedures and aims to become the foremost supplier of Seasonal Labour in Australia.
The matters raised by UCA Pastoral care The Seasonal Worker Programme Implementation Arrangements provide that the responsibility of the Approved Employers include: “Providing pastoral care for workers, including opportunities for recreation and religious observance, a 24 hour contact number, and assisting workers to access services in the local community” Accordingly, it is the responsibility of SLS to provide pastoral care to its workers.

SLS has always done so and did so in Hilston.


Our then Manager, my wife , SLS staff and I spent a great deal of time with our workers in Hilston discussing their needs and assisting them when and as required.

, our accountant assisting.

(my wife’s uncle), also spent a couple of weeks in Hillston SLS maintains an office in Vila and carefully interviews and selects our own workers for our own clients.

Workers are able to ask questions before they accept any offer of employment.
I personally met with the workers as a group in Vanuatu and in Hilston and held induction sessions during which I advised all staff that if they had any particular faith and wished us to contact any church to find prayer times and service times to please advise us and we would make the arrangements.

I also advised workers that we would assist with introductions to sporting clubs, arranging fishing licences, or any other assistance they required in relation to organising recreational activities.
Page 2 of 9 Inquiry into the Seasonal Worker ProgrammeSubmission 44 All of the workers spoke English and many of our staff speak Bislama.

Prior to accepting the letters of offer of employment workers were advised, that under the award they may be required to work weekends and that if their faith did not allow them to work on the weekend they should not accept the offer of employment.

I personally explained this when I spoke to our workers in Vanuatu.
Upon the workers’ arrival in Hilston I conducted the workers on a tour of Hilston showing them the churches in the area, banks, shops and other places of importance to help them familiarise themselves with the town.

Transport was made available for anyone wishing to go to church or sporting clubs on either Saturday or Sunday.

A bus and driver and two vehicles were provided and SLS set up an unlimited fuel account.
The drivers would take the workers to the churches or sporting clubs and shopping as they required.

During the period of their employment no-one in the group requested any assistance in locating a church.

The workers did have other requests which SLS attended to.

The welfare of workers was and is always a matter of priority for SLS.

I was aware that many of the workers had worked in Hilston the year before for another agency and had attended churches.
The Unit’s submissions do not suggest that there was any incident of any worker requesting and not being provided with pastoral care.

SLS has a full time staff member to take enquiries from workers and to assist them with any problems or issues they may have.

The workers are provided with the direct telephone numbers for myself, my wife and all key SLS personnel.
SLS advanced money to workers and has procedures in place to make arrangements for workers to travel home if they need to in the event of an emergency or crisis such as a death in the family in Vanuatu.

If financial assistance is required it is provided.

Incorrect contact telephone numbers in the letter of offer of employment.

The Unit has not quoted the section of letter of offer of employment relating to pastoral care in full.
The relevant section of the letter of offer of employment provides that: “Details of pastoral care and all other assistance” SLS will approach a number of community leaders around the Hillston and Griffith region’s to assist with pastoral care for seasonal workers.
There are a number of representatives that have expressed their desire to Page 3 of 9 Inquiry into the Seasonal Worker ProgrammeSubmission 44 Inquiry into the Seasonal Worker ProgrammeSubmission 44 I do not believe that numbers and believe this may have been due to an administrative error.

They may have been numbers that he had retained on file.
deliberately provided SLS with out of date SLS did not check the numbers having no reason to believe that the telephone numbers Prassard Management Pty Ltd provided to us were incorrect.

Had this been brought to the attention of SLS we would have rectified the problem immediately.

I am not aware that any of the workers attempted to call any of the numbers.

The letter invites the workers to contact our agent if any further support or contacts were required.
Workers were provided with contact details for our agent.

Our workers had the telephone numbers for all key SLS staff who were available to contact 24 hours each day.

I have checked and note that the addresses for the churches are correct.

Further I note that the churches and soccer club listed have web sites, and the Hilston Uniting Church website has its telephone listed.

Many workers had access to the internet via their smart phones.

Hilston is a small town.


The workers had access to transport (a bus with a driver and two vehicles) and they were provided with the means and were able to attend the churches at the address stated.

Further, SLS did not advise workers and the letter of offer of employment does not imply that the churches referred to had agreed to provide pastoral care to SLS workers.

The letter states that SLS intended to approach community leaders to assist with pastoral care.
The letter provided details of the soccer club and two churches.

These were provided as examples as the workers belonged to more than 8 denominations.

It was not expected that the Uniting Church would provide pastoral care to all SLS staff and only a small percentage of the group were Uniting Church members in any event.

None of the workers requested they be referred to a particular church and we would have made the arrangements had they so requested.
SLS provided workers with 6 contact numbers for SLS personnel who were available to take calls 24 hours per day and answer questions, assist the workers and attend to pastoral care.

Although SLS staff were contacted by workers and dealt with any queries as and when they were made, the issue of the incorrect numbers were not raised with us by any worker and no worker requested that they be provided with a telephone number for any of the churches referred to in the letter of offer of employment.
The Unit’s submissions fail to refer to our advice to workers to contact our agent in the event that further support or contacts were required.

Page 5 of 9 Inquiry into the Seasonal Worker ProgrammeSubmission 44 The workers were aware of the location of the churches and the soccer club and had transport available to them to attend the churches and the soccer club.
If the provision of the incorrect numbers had been raised with us by any worker we would have ascertained and provided the number to them or arranged to have taken them to the church or the soccer club.

It appears from the Unit’s submissions that workers spoke to church leaders and attended church and bible study classes in any event.
It also appears from Unit’s submissions that the workers who did attend did not seek pastoral care from the church although this was obviously a matter for them and we respect their privacy.

In response to the unit’s claim that they spoke to representatives of SLS I am able to say that the Unit spoke to SLS accountant, .
I have spoken to and he has advised me that: (a) he did not apologise that the congregation had not been contacted; (b) he did not accept that the Unit’s suggestion that the letter of offer of employment implied that the congregation of the Hilston Uniting Church had agreed to provide pastoral care; and (c) he did not suggest that had added the churches to the letter of offer of employment or that he had done so without checking with SLS.

The letter of offer of employment was prepared by SLS and not by .
Action we have taken to rectify the issue We have implemented a procedure to confirm all contact numbers provided to workers and to ensure that this situation does not occur again.

Accommodation and cooking utensils.

The allegations in the submissions regarding accommodation and cooking utensils are incorrect.

I personally inspected all the premises.

All rooms were workers huts with heating and cooling, there was a clean, hygienic toilet /shower block and a very large open camp kitchen.
There was plenty of cooking and eating utensils available.

SLS stayed in constant contact with this group and at no stage was SLS asked to provide additional plates or cutlery.

SLS would have dealt with any such request had it been raised.

Page 6 of 9 Inquiry into the Seasonal Worker ProgrammeSubmission 44 All units had reverse cycle air-conditioning and upon my inspection there was ample cooking utensils when we arrived.
Photographs of the accommodation were forwarded to DEEWA for approval and the premises were approved.

We are able to provide photos of the accommodation if required.

Occupational Heath and Safety and payments to workers.

We understand that WorkSafe visited the property and that there was a subsequent follow up.

SLS was not privy to the meetings and or points raised but understand that any issues were resolved to WorkSafe’s satisfaction and work was not suspended or halted.
SLS complies with its obligations to provide a safe workplace.

All workers were paid properly and SLS is happy to make all employee payrolls available to the committee and to answer any further questions it may have.

Access to Unions and Fair Work As part of our recruitment plan, and in accordance with DEEWA’s advice it is SLS practice to send an AWU union representative and a Fair Work representative an invitation to attend and address the workers.
SLS is advised by DEEWA of the details of the contact at Fair Work and the union representative to invite.

SLS sends invitations to the representatives and forwards copies of the invitations to DEEWA.

This is completed 2-6 weeks prior the arrival of staff.

The representatives are always invited to attend at either the workers’ place of accommodation or the work site.

SLS issues an open invitation to attend so as to suit the union and its delegate’s convenience.
SLS would not issue an invitation for a specific time that would be inconvenient or impractical for the union or Fair Work representative or otherwise stand in the way of a union or Fair Work representative meeting with our workers.

On this occasion, DEEWA was awaiting a reply from the AWU as to the details of the union representative we were to contact.

However, the AWU was going through a restructure and did not advise DEEWA of the representative’s details.

Accordingly DEEWA could not advise SLS.


SLS followed up on a number of occasions with DEEWA but the AWU did not advise DEEWA until after the staff had arrived.

DEEWA advised SLS of details of the Fair Work contact and SLS emailed the contact with an invitation to attend.

SLS sent a copy of the invitation to DEEWA.

SLS is happy for union representatives to contact and speak to our workers.
We have never told a worker that they might be deported if they attempt to contact a Page 7 of 9 Inquiry into the Seasonal Worker ProgrammeSubmission 44 union representative and we reject any suggestion by the Unit that SLS has ever done so.

As Approved Employers, SLS follows best practise and has no issue with Fair Work or union delegates meeting with workers and providing advice and assistance to them.
Licensing System for Labour Hire Businesses We agree with the submissions by the Unit with regard to this particular matter and would support the implementation of its recommendations.

SLS would also suggest that all Labour Hire Agencies, which are part of the SWP, become members of the Recruitment Consultants and Services Association (RSCA) which is the peak body in Australia for Labour Hire Agencies.

SLS has been in contact with RSCA over the past 2 months and is expecting full Membership by weeks end.
Conclusion It is of the highest importance to SLS to ensure that our workers are happy and that our clients are satisfied with our services.

The maintenance of workers’ welfare is importance in ensuring we keep a productive workforce.

As part of our policy of continual improvement we have recently upgraded our CRM programs enabling us to have continuous monitoring of every worker on every farm.

SLS keeps up to date records of, pay rates, hours worked, days off work, etc.
which enables SLS to monitor our workers’ income and wellbeing and to follow up if any concerns emerge as a result of our ongoing data analysis.

We recently leased a light aircraft which will enable to respond immediately to any farm or staff issue in person within 24 hours.

We maintain regular contact with our team leaders and workers.
SLS regards its staff as family keep a close watch on staff welfare and have systems in place to provide workers with full support (including providing financial assistance) should an emergency arise either in Australia or Vanuatu (such as a family member becoming sick or dying).

We are happy to provide contact numbers for staff we have in Australia for you to randomly call.
SLS is committed to the objectives of the Seasonal Worker Programme which includes contributing to the economic development of Pacific Island countries and Timor-Leste.

The Seasonal Worker Programme offers a reliable, returning Page 8 of 9 Inquiry into the Seasonal Worker ProgrammeSubmission 44 workforce to Australian employers who, despite their commitment to employing Australian job seekers, have an unmet demand for labour.
We support the Committee in its endeavour to regulate the industry and to ensure that rogue operators and unlicensed contractors are kept out.

Should the Committee have any query arising from these submissions or require any further information I would be pleased if you would so advise.

Yours faithfully, Brian Fankhauser Director Page 9 of 9 Inquiry into the Seasonal Worker ProgrammeSubmission 44