Migrant offered $5 an hour with no holiday pay

By STEPHEN COOK

Crystal Xu is bright, hard-working and desperately wants a job. But the only work she can get pays peanuts.

What's more, the hours are awful, there's no overtime or holiday pay and the long-term career prospects are abysmal.

Since March, the 23-year-old Chinese migrant has been seeking work in Auckland. But the barriers have been formidable.

She has a diploma in tourism as well as office work experience, but says that has counted for nothing because of hardened attitudes to migrants

So she has been forced to try her luck in the Chinese community. But employers there, she says, have been willing to pay her only between $5 and $8 an hour, with no penal or holiday pay.

"I feel really bad about the whole situation - the fact you are treated this way by your own people," Ms Xu says.

Others have asked her to work for nothing for a trial period "to see how it works out".

Employment contracts are never mentioned and most payments are offered under the table.

If she mentions anything to do with working conditions, the job interview is cut short.

Of the Chinese firms she has applied to work for - including a supermarket in Ellerslie, a clothing shop in Otahuhu and a travel agency in Papatoetoe - none have offered her anything close to the minimum wage of $9 an hour.

One even asked her to work 11 hours a day, six days a week.

Other job offers were for commission with no retainer, which meant no guarantee of any income.

Ms Xu says her British-born partner, Finn Higgins, is also a migrant but he has had no difficulty finding work. Mr Higgins says that since arriving here in 2001 he has worked in temping jobs and now is employed as a writer for Kiwi Property Investor magazine.

He says his partner would be a valuable addition to any firm and could perform duties from office reception to data entry work.

"She could do the same sort of work that I was doing as a temp. But because she is Chinese, New Zealand firms aren't prepared to give her a go," he said.

"And the Chinese employers just want to rip her off. It's not fair at all."

Ms Xu is here on a revolving six-month visa. Although that may have affected her employment prospects, she says, she is committed to staying.

She has explained to employers that because of her relationship with Mr Higgins - who has permanent residency - she is confident of being able to remain in the country, but says she is discriminated against because of her uncertain immigration status.

North Shore Immigration Service consultant Robert White said it was well known that many employers did not want to take a chance on Chinese immigrants.