Working hard to fail

By SIMON COLLINS

When seventh-former Lonise Hemana walks out of school on a Friday afternoon, the toughest part of her week begins.

Until midnight, she works behind the counter at a KFC fast-food outlet in Te Atatu South.

On Saturday, she is back from 4 pm until midnight, and again on Sunday from 9 am to 5 pm - a total of 22 hours a week.

Until recently she also worked on weeknights, but she stopped when the store hired new staff, including fellow students Rachel Howie and Danielle Hacking.

"I still get really tired, though," Lonise says.

So do thousands of other school students. Facts are sketchy, but after-school work seems to be increasing dramatically.

The proportion of 15 to 19-year-olds working part-time jumped from 12 per cent in the 1991 census to 28 per cent five years later.

The first official data including workers under 15, issued by Statistics NZ last month, shows that 25 per cent of boys and 20 per cent of girls aged 12 to 17 work part-time, for an average of 1.4 hours a day (9.8 hours a week).

A survey of eight high schools by the Post Primary Teachers Association, published last November, found that 51 per cent of all students had part-time jobs during term.

And at Dunstan High School in Otago, another survey found that 61 per cent of students in forms five to seven had part-time work in 1997.

Of course, there is nothing new about child labour. Children have long helped in activities such as gathering firewood and tending animals, and later in family businesses such as shops and milk runs.

But at least since school became compulsory, it has been a mark of a civilised society that children should not have to work long hours.

Western Springs College in Auckland, for example, advises parents that students should not have part-time jobs taking up more than six hours a week - say, an hour-long paper run six days a week.

Yet when the college surveyed its students in 1996, it found that 116 out of 700 worked more than six hours.

The Dunstan High study found 24 per cent of its fifth, sixth and seventh-formers working more than 10 hours a week, 10 per cent more than 15 hours and 3 per cent more than 20 hours.

This matters. When researcher Phil Morrison graphed the hours the Dunstan students worked in part-time jobs against their external exam results, he found a downward-sloping line. The more hours they worked the lower their marks.

Another study at Whangarei Boys High School in 1998 used car ownership as a test for students working long hours - and found a striking result. Only 16 per cent of a group classed as school "achievers" owned cars by the sixth form, compared with 50 per cent of "under-achievers."

Most students interviewed for this article, such as Lonise Hemana, say they can still do homework despite their jobs.

"It's about being organised," says Toby Archibald, a seventh-former at Rosehill College in Papakura who works 14 hours a week at McDonald's.

But others, like sixth-former John Tjik, who works in a garment factory up to 10 hours a week, say their jobs drain them of energy.

"I can do my homework and study for my subjects, but sometimes I get lazy because of work," says John.

Why do they do it? Carol Beaumont, of the National Distribution Union, says one reason is that there are more part-time jobs around.

"Now we have scenarios where three stores are opening 24 hours a day in Auckland, so there are a lot more hours available for people to work."

Another factor is the collapse of national awards since the Employment Contracts Act came in in 1991.

"The old award system used to have a limitation on the ratio of junior workers to senior workers," Carol Beaumont says. "That disappeared soon after the ECA, contract by contract."

And if employers want young workers, high school students are increasingly willing to work - for two broad reasons.

First - and most commonly - students want money for their social lives and to be independent of their parents. Ironically, cheaper cars and cellphones have added pressure to keep up with their friends by buying them.

"I heard of one school that had to build a second carpark for student cars," says Western Springs College teacher Dal McGuirk.

Three members of the Waitakere City Secondary Schools Youth Council, all sixth and seventh-formers, say "90 per cent" of their friends have cellphones.

But a minority of students, such as Lonise Hemana, are working to support their families.

"I live with Aunty. Instead of paying board, I pay the telephone bill. I work to pay for school fees and trips," Lonise says. "My mother is [in Samoa]. If she rings up and says she needs money, I send it over."

Seventh-former Fetu Poloa, from Hillary College in Otara, works 28 hours a week at a Wendy's hamburger bar and pays half her earnings to her parents. Her mother does casual nursing, but her father is out of work.

At Tangaroa College in East Tamaki, a seventh-former works at a service station five to seven days a week, often for double shifts - 16 hours at a stretch. Both his parents are on sickness benefits.

He wants to go to teachers college, and Tangaroa College is letting him do two subjects in the hours that his job allows.

Most students say they enjoy their jobs - and not just the money.

"I would work there for free - it's a real fun job," says Waitakere College fifth-former Lucy Wilson, who got a weekend job at a Wendy's ice-cream shop because she is new from England and "just wanted something to do."

Or Chris Whitcombe, a Waitakere seventh-former who is a chef at the Ellerslie Convention Centre: "You get to meet new people - I got a partner to the ball from work. I would work just for the enjoyment."

For this group, who are working for personal reasons or for financial independence, it seems simply a matter of finding the right balance in their lives.

Youth Affairs Minister Laila Harre says some young people behave "like the work ethic gone mad."

"There are a lot of expensive things that have become fairly ordinary with teenagers. It's unsustainable, that level of spending and the risk it poses in other areas of young people's lives. We have our priorities wrong."

But the more difficult group is the students who work to support their families. For them, there is no easy solution.

An author of a study on South Auckland schools, Kay Hawk, says part of the answer is to fund schools in low-income areas to provide free food, stationery, field trips and the like so students do not need part-time jobs to pay for them.

The Child Poverty Action Group says another step would be to pay the same Family Support for all children.

Under National Government legislation, families where at least one parent works fulltime get a tax credit which is not available where parents can get only part-time, casual or no work.

A Child Poverty Action spokeswoman, Auckland University economist Susan St John, says it would cost $260 million to extend the same amount to all families - but the country's poorest families would benefit.

Laila Harre says the Government will review benefit levels and tertiary education fees. The Alliance advocates abolishing fees completely.

She says poverty will also be eased by relating state house rents to tenants' incomes and reviewing childcare funding so sole parents can take jobs - again relieving the need for their children to work.

"But there is also an acceptance that making that happen costs quite a bit of money upfront."

Patchy child labour laws have little real impact

Legal restrictions on child labour are patchy - and little used.

The Health and Safety in Employment Regulations 1995 require employers to take "all practicable steps" to ensure that employees under 15 do not work in manufacturing, construction, logging or any other activity "likely to cause harm."

They must also ensure that children under 16 do not work between 10 pm and 6 am except under an approved code of practice.

But the Penrose branch manager of the Labour Department's Occupational Safety and Health (Osh) service, Jim Bell, says the only complaints he is aware of concerning young people have been about employers letting their own children play with dangerous equipment.

National spokesman for Osh Justin Brownlie says there are no approved codes of practice for employing under-16s after hours.

There is no law setting minimum work breaks. Foodtown checkout operator Amber Bucknell says she gets a meal break of just 15 minutes if she works a 4 pm to 9 pm shift after school.

"In that 15 minutes you have to venture out into the store, choose something to eat, get in the queue - which is five minutes - then go upstairs to eat, and go to the bathroom, all in 15 minutes."

Children under 16 are not covered by the minimum wage, which is $4.55 an hour for people aged 16-19 and $7.55 for those aged 20-plus. These rates are under review.

Actual pay rates for school students surveyed by the Post Primary Teachers Association last year ranged from under $4 to $30 an hour, with an average of $6.78.

Student workers can protect their rights by joining a union, even if they are only employed casually. A Youth Union Movement was formed in January and is based at the Service Workers Union and FinSec in Auckland.