Call for overtime rates for casual fruit pickers and packers to be scrapped

A Queensland packhouse worker said overtime rates were leaving her financially worse off because farmers couldn’t afford to pay.

An amendment to the Horticulture Award designed to protect workers is making them “unaffordable” and stripping them of hours of work, says a casual worker who is taking her fight to have the changes overturned to the Fair Work Commission.

Queensland packhouse worker Emma Treves has lodged an application to change the Horticulture Award to remove the obligation for employers to pay casual staff a 175 per cent loading in certain conditions.

The loading kicks in when hours worked exceed 304 over an eight-week period.

Ms Treves said the change to the award – introduced in April 2019 as part of the most radical changes to the Horticulture Award in almost a decade – did not take into account employers’ capacity to pay overtime.

She said her experience in the industry proved it was not commercially viable for most employers to pay, with many instead forcing casuals to take time off once they reached the threshold of 304 hours until a new eight-week period began to avoid incurring overtime rates.

“Once the arbitrary 38-hour-a-week average in an eight-week period is passed we are almost certain to get no work until the new eight-week period starts. No income at all.

“Before this section was introduced we were able to keep working at the normal award pay rate. We casual employees are the intended beneficiaries of these sections, yet in practice they make us financially worse off,” Ms Treves said.

“I want to work and earn money as I can, not be stopped from working because of an objective which is not commercially viable for employers. Let me decide if I want to work long hours without overtime pay, not the FWC.”

Ms Treves, who has worked as a harvest casual for 17 years, said she feared her job would be mechanised and farm businesses closed if unaffordable labour costs were not addressed.

Isaac Norve from Vanuatu picks cherries at Lucaston Park Orchard in Cradoc. PICTURE: ZAK SIMMONDS

Dawn Tai, who is in Australia on a seasonal worker visa from Papua New Guinea to pick fruit for citrus growers in Mareeba, Far North Queensland, agrees with Ms Treves.

“I’m wishing if only we can be allowed to work on top of the given hours if we wish,” Mr Tai said.

Leeton citrus grower and Pacific Fresh packhouse manager Frank Mercuri said he has workers who would rather continue working for the standard casual rate than be stood down once they’d worked 304 hours within eight weeks becasue he couldn’t afford their wages bill.

“There are plenty of casuals who want to keep working but you have to put them off. It just becomes too costly, it ruins your business. They’re happy to work for the same (casual) pay,” Mr Mercuri said.

Cobram citrus farmer Beverley Fisher said her labour costs had doubled since the award was changed, and “our only conclusion is that the government wants to wipe out all farmers and buy their food from other countries”.

Her business harvests oranges for five months of the year, and therefore can’t provide continuous employment so instead requires bursts of labour that incur significant labour costs due to overtime provisions.

Far North Queensland lemon and mango farmers Bryan and Steven Schincariol said their workers were willing to work more than 304 hours over an eight-week period, but they could not afford to pay them at the legislated rate, forcing them to stand down staff, who often left.

“Most people won’t sit around waiting for their new eight-week block to recommence once they have reached their allotted hours, they just leave and start work elsewhere. This then forces us to go out and source new workers (which are not readily available) and incur extra expense by having to train them.

“Paying penalty rates to keep original people is also definitely not a viable option,” the Schincariols said in their submission to Ms Treves FWC application.

The FWC is calling for submissions on the matter until November 4.