Dealing with Seasonal Labour Shortages

October 31, 2006

Although guest worker programmes, for better or worse, may provide a temporary solution to New Zealand’s seasonal labour problem, they are not a realistic, long- term solution. Large scale guest worker programmes can have big social costs and its citizens, not employers, that end up footing the bill.

The Country needs to take a serious look at how it can increase productivity and encourage more locals to do seasonal work.

Firstly, treat farmers’ complaints about labour shortages with a little skepticism.

Apparently, Australia has a major shortage of seasonal labour but it also has some very inefficient farms.

I once picked pears on a farm in Victoria, which were destined for the SPC canary. Since the pears were picked before they were ripe, they could have picked using a cherry picker. Instead we walked around using heavy steel ladders and so took four times as long as we should have – not surprisingly, by Australian standards (and even New Zealand standards for that matter) we were paid very poorly.

The blunt reality is that if small time farms can’t invest in suitable equipment they should sell out to bigger farms with bigger pockets.

Admittedly, some crops bruise easily and it is necessary to carefully hand-pick them, and this is certainly the case with apples. Interestingly, pay rates for apple picking are not that bad – the problem is that not that many people available at the right time to harvest them.

One thing that could be done is to change the holiday times for Polytechnics in horticultural regions like Nelson and Hawke’s Bay. If students had their holidays in the autumn, it would make it much easier for farmers to find labour at harvest time.

Although NZ has a lower unemployment rate than Australia, we have a much stingier visa scheme for young workers from Europe and North America. For example, while New Zealanders on two year working visas make a significant contribution to the UK economy, British and Irish backpackers on six-month visas in NZ simply don’t have enough time to do much work.

If you want to get young backpackers to work, you have to give them enough time to use up their savings, and pounds and euros go a long way in New Zealand. The reason that Kiwis in the UK have a reputation as good workers is because they are usually desperate for money after a few weeks of arriving in rip-off London.

If labour shortages are as bad as the Government says, we should start a new scheme for one-two year visas for European and American travellers under 40 with good English skills.

However, people on visas don’t vote, and at present New Zealand’s two main political parties are more interested in importing voters and wealthy house hunters than in directly addressing labour needs.

Leave a Comment » | Immigration, Labour shortages | Permalink
Posted by mikecourtman

Polynesian Guest Workers

October 31, 2006

The Government’s new proposal to bring in more Polynesian guest workers has gained the support of New Zealand First while drawing criticism from National.

The proposal allows for up to 5000 guest workers from Polynesia to fill seasonal labour shortages in viticulture and horticulture.

Given New Zealand First’s focus on export led growth, it seems that it prefers a guest worker programme to the idea of increased Polynesian immigration in the future. National, showing unusual concern for the wider public interest, points out that the country has up to 20,000 over stayers at any one time and that there is nothing to stop the workers from running off to get lost in the big city.

Personally, I have mixed views on guest worker programmes. I prefer them to large-scale immigration initiatives but realise that there is a lot of potential for abuse by both employers and workers.

This is an important issue that is getting nowhere near enough media attention.

3 Comments | Immigration, Labour shortages, NZ economy | Permalink
Posted by mikecourtman

Remittances – A Long term Perspective

October 21, 2006

The World Bank is claiming that remittances are the best way to help developing countries and that third world immigration to the West won’t harm western economies.

However, this ignores the fact that many western countries are increasingly in debt to East Asian creditors and that East Asia doesn’t play the western game when it comes to immigration.

In western countries like The United States and Great Britain, most of the jobs done by immigrants from developing countries are service jobs like cleaning, catering and labouring. These activities may benefit individual middle class westerners but they don’t contribute to increasing exports or decreasing imports. Not surprisingly, the fiscal health of the United States is deteriorating as third world immigration continues unabated.

In contrast, immigrant workers in East Asia are usually compelled to do productive jobs in factories. Subsequently, countries like Korea and Japan are still managing to stay out of debt and are maintaining healthy trade surpluses.

Although the volume of remittances from the West to developing countries may be impressive to World Bank economists, there is no evidence to suggest it is sustainable. When the West finally has to face up to its debts, the volume of remittance contributions will rapidly decline as the West can no longer afford the luxury of employing legions of unskilled service workers.

Also, lets not forget the global population is still increasing as the number of rich westerners is decreasing. This means that we will need to become even more decadent and wasteful to satisfy the third’s world’s expanding need for remittance money. This is not something that social conservatives are likely to be happy about.

The two factors that will finally make the West face up to its debts are population aging and rising commodity prices.

China is short of resources and has an aging population so it is eventually going to have to float the Yuan to pay for essential imports. That will cut off the supply of easy credit and ultra-cheap goods to the West.

If western governments are going to import workers from poorer countries then they should at least make sure these people are directed into productive jobs like food processing and seasonal farm work where there may be genuine labour shortages.

If workers from developing countries are channelled into specific jobs, in productive industries, and in limited numbers, then it will be easier for the government to monitor them. This will benefit both foreign workers, who are vulnerable to exploitable, and local workers who may be forced out of work by unscrupulous employers trying to undercut minimum wage rates.

Although the ‘guest worker’ programmes used by East Asian countries, and some western countries, are far from ideal, they arguably do less harm to the host country then large-scale, liberal immigration policies that may have huge external costs for future generations.

Leave a Comment » | Economic issues, Immigration | Permalink
Posted by mikecourtman

Technology Trumps Ideology

October 14, 2006

Reuters is currently circulating an article about women drivers in Russia entitled “Women are in the driving seat”. In the article a Russian motoring writer points out that:

“15 to 25 years ago there were no female drivers in Russia…There was only one car in the family and that belonged to the husband, the brother, or the father and they did all the driving”.

Today there are around two million women drivers in Russia and the number of women taking to the wheel is growing rapidly.

Now according to contemporary feminists, female emancipation has been due to the tireless efforts of women’s rights advocates. However, for over 80 years Russian society was ruled according to an aggressive egalitarian ideology called communism. Anyone who has read a few chapters of Karl Marx’s writing will know emancipation is a big part of Marxist ideology. A woman, according to Marx, can’t be a “species- being” until she is emancipated from domestic drudgery.

What’s happening in Russia certainly casts a few doubts on the notion that political activism has been the main reason for changing attitudes to women. It seems that male technology has also played a big part in liberating women from “repression and drudgery”.

This finding fits in nicely with Patrick Buchanan’s controversial statement:

”The real liberators of American women were not the feminist noise makers; they were the automobile, the supermarket, the shopping centre, the dishwasher, the washer-dryer, the freezer”.

How about a feminist cheer for the male engineer?

Leave a Comment » | Liberalism | Permalink
Posted by mikecourtman

Borat’s "Cultural Leanings"

October 11, 2006

It turns out I was right about Sacha Ben Cohen’s lack of research into Kazakhstan for his Kazakh character Borat.

According to a Sunday Times article, “Curse of The Kazakhs” (October 8, C17), the producer of the early episodes of Da Ali G Show, Andrew Newman, has confessed:

“I think we chose Kazakhstan fairly randomly. It was somewhere that
sounded far away and we thought it would not be that easy to check up about”.

Honestly, what’s comedy coming to.

However, there are some interesting points about Borat on Wikipedia, such as :

“The hair and mustache are real and it takes about six weeks to grow them to
Borat’s length. The hair has never been washed, which helps him to smell “foreign”.

Excellent, Cohen may be a bit slack on research but you can’t fault his commitment to method acting.


2 Comments | Uncategorized | Permalink
Posted by mikecourtman

Tolerating Intolerance

October 7, 2006

One of the foolish mistakes that many liberal democracies make is granting non-democratic parties political representation.

The most infamous group to get into power through democratic election were the Nazis. The Nazis frequently ridiculed the democratic process, yet the democratic Weimar government turned the other check. Even a cursory read through Mein Kampf, should have told them that Hitler has no place in a democratic government.

In 1917, Russia’s newly elected democratic government made a similar mistake when they failed to arrest the Bolsheviks. The Bolsheviks also publicly broadcast their totalitarian ambitions. Kerensky’s democratic government was particularly foolish because it had the backing of the army, which could have disarmed the Bolsheviks if it had been given approval to act quickly. Furthermore, it is unlikely that the Nazi’s would have been voted in if the German electorate hadn’t been threatened by the prospect of Russian backed communists.

Even today, western democracies still allow communist organisations to register as legimiate political parties. No doubt this is to validate the superiority of democracy and capitalism, but it also smacks of complacency, if not stupidity.

Some right-liberals argue that parties that promote the interests of particular ethnic groups should also be denied political representation. However, provided such parties abide by the democratic process, and don’t use violence or intimidation to achieve their ends, I don’t see why they shouldn’t be allowed to register.

Many left-liberals in Britain regard the British National Party as an extremist party that should be outlawed. The BNP may promote views that are extreme to liberal sensibilities but it does (at least at present) respect the democratic process. In fact, the BNP is probably the second most democratic party in Britain after the Liberal Democrats. This is because it is copying the Liberal Democrat strategy of campaigning on local issues through door knocking and telephone inquiries. In fact,the BNP probably has a better idea what ordinary people actually think that the Labour government.

If parties like the BNP are excluded from government then parties that represent non-white minorities will also have to be excluded. In New Zealand, the Maori Party, rightly or wrongly, promotes the interests of particular group, yet this doesn’t seem to concern left-liberals that attack white nationalists.

Democratic governments will always risk shooting themselves in the foot when they tolerate undemocratic parties of the right or the left.

5 Comments | Democracy, Liberalism | Permalink
Posted by mikecourtman

Brash, Peters and Assimilation

October 6, 2006

Don Brash’s new ‘anti-Maori’ stance is setting up a showdown with New Zealand First over how to deal with the increasing problems posed by multiculturalism.

Brash calls for the abolition of all racial preferences for Maori including television and radio quotas and Maori political seats. Peter’s has responded by saying that such policies are tantamount to racial nihilism and will trigger unnecessary conflict.

I suspect that Brash thinks that if Maori continue to have special preferences then other minorities will start to campaign for special privileges and the country will descend into a full-blown ethnic spoils system.

National’s new, harder line on assimilation may be a good idea for screening prospective immigrants but is a questionable policy for dealing with Maori.

As indigenous people, the Maori did not have a choice about whether or not to accept western values. White westerners came in numbers and they had to adapt to a largely western way of life. In contrast, prospective immigrants are free to stay at home if they don’t agree with New Zealand’s predominantly western culture.

If all special accommodations for Maori are cut they will be even more detached from their native culture – arguably, this could well make social problems such as crime and educational underachievement even worse. Furthermore, even if Brash is right, Maori are too large a group to be totally assimilated into White culture so there will always be a large number of dissenters who will seek to undermine such an approach.

While New Zealander First has a slightly softer line on Maori assimilation, it has a harder line on immigration. New Zealand First is the only party with an explicit commitment to limited immigration, so it doesn’t need to ‘make an example’ of Maori to maintain social cohesion. Conversely, National has a more expansive immigration policy and is therefore compelled to pursue an aggressive policy towards assimilating Maori.

While it is good to see Brash talking candidly about Maori problems like domestic violence and obesity, he fails to consider the possibility that expansive immigration policies may have contributed to some of these problems.

Even though Maori unemployment has gone down, wages have not kept pace with the rising cost of living. Property prices have soared in the major cities and in the competition for housing, relatively wealthy East Asian immigrants have out bid Maori families who are increasingly unable to get a toehold on the property ladder. Like it or not, this trend is only going to add to the Maori grievance culture.

There has also been a hollowing out of Maori communities as many hard working Maori have left the country to seek higher wages in Australia. Restless young men in these communities now have few role models to look to for help and guidance.

Where there is clear evidence that affirmative action policies are failing then there may be a good case for removing them or replacing them with something better. If there aren’t enough Maori applicants to fill university quotas then perhaps the government would be better off providing polytech scholarships instead.

In general, it appears New Zealand First aims to help Maori by maintaining support for Maori culture and moderating inequality. At the same time it is aware that continuing transfers of resources from Whites to Maori is creating a strong White backlash.

Brash’s policy of attacking Maori culture appears to be undermining support for New Zealand First, but come election time it may drive moderate voters into the hands of Labour. This could create an even stronger Labour government that is free from any restraining influence from New Zealand First.

1 Comment | Race, nz politics | Permalink
Posted by mikecourtman

Managerialism

October 4, 2006

Libertarian blogger ‘Stumbling and Mumbling’ points out that there is an important distinction between technocratic management and managerialism.

Managerialism is an ideology that claims management is a profession in its own right that has generic methods and rules that can be applied to all types of organizations (managerial thinking is primarily spread via MBA programmes, a point alluded to by Canadian writer John Ralston Saul in his 1992 best seller ‘Voltaire’s Bastards’).

The reality of course, is that good managers need to have prior experience in the particular field that they are managing. For example, you can’t really manage a manufacturing firm if you don’t know anything about making things. I have been told that managerialism has been one of the reasons for the dramatic decline of British and American manufacturing.

Managerialism is more rampant in English-speaking countries than in East Asia or Continental Europe. This is partly because English-speaking countries have very unstable job markets, so professionals try to make their careers more secure by marketing themselves as adaptable generalists. If organizations believe in generic management then managers can hop from job to job and muddle through without specialist knowledge.

By contrast, East Asian countries lie Japan and Korea emphasis job loyalty rather than professional loyalty so their managers have more specialist knowledge. This is one reason why the Japanese excel at planning complex projects and manufacturing high quality goods.

Admittedly, technocratic management can lead to rigid thinking and this is one of the reasons why narrowly focused economists should be taught history and politics as well as abstract economic theory. This might encourage them to take a longer-term view of economic problems.

In the English-speaking world ideological managers are often positive thinking extroverts who frequently clash with critical thinking introverts. George Bush provides a pretty good example of a positive thinking extrovert.

Ideological managers tend to have shallow educational backgrounds and an aversion to reading. This leaves them vulnerable to fashionable, up beat ideas based on simplified readings of works by established intellectuals. The Landmark Forum is a popular positive thinking course that fleeces managerial extroverts using watered down ideas from existential philosophers.

John Maynard Keynes points to the weakness of managerial thinking in his often quoted remark: “Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence are usually the slave of some defunct economist”.

1 Comment | Business, Managerialism | Permalink
Posted by mikecourtman

Politics and Relationships

October 1, 2006

Prior to the late 1960s, politics wasn’t really a big consideration in people’s choice of partner. It was generally thought that woman were less interested in politics than men, and in any case, differences in political views were not a big deal.

Today though, people are increasingly seeking partners with similar jobs and opinions.This trend emerged began in the 1970s with fashionable magazines like London’s Time Out running singles columns for young urban liberals. Now conservatives have got in on the act with on-line dating agencies like Conservative Match – ‘sweethearts not bleeding hearts’.

One reason why politics has become more important in relationships it that women have become more educated.

When women were first given the vote, conservatives were surprised that most of them didn’t vote for socialist parties. It was assumed that women would vote with their hearts, rather than their heads, and support the left. Subsequently, conservatives were dead against universal suffrage. However, it soon became apparent that once women have families they become more conservative and vote for economic stability and pro-family policies.

Today, women are spending more time in university (soaking up politically correct ideas) and are waiting much longer to have families. The result is that many of them are becoming more liberal and less concerned with economic stability and ‘affordable family formation’.

In general, educated women are more concerned with social and environmental issues than economic issues like tax rates. This may be one of the reasons why a lot of young males are libertarians and neo-conservatives.

Males with traditional conservative views appear insensitive and unfashionable. Conversely, male libertarians and neo-conservatives, with milder views on social issues, are less likely to clash with educated liberal women. At the same time they can express their ‘manly political incorrectness’ through economic liberalism. Hence, neo-conservatives and libertarians males may think they are politically tough and unfashionable, but they are unconsciously conforming to the desires of liberal women and workplaces dominated by women.

In contrast, socially conservative males are arguably today’s true ‘conservative’ rebels – standing up for free speech, political integrity, and putting their jobs (and possibly sex lives) on the line.

The Iraq war however, is bad news for male neo-cons. Women hate wars and attitudes towards paleoconservatives may soften as events unfold according to their predictions.

2 Comments | Conservatism, Liberalism | Permalink
Posted by mikecourtman