[ inspiration and some material on this post from Mr Bernard Hickey’s excellent and well-written article, thank you Mr Hickey. And thank you Roy for sharing your story. ]
FOR THE NEXT FIVE MINUTES, please pretend what I’m saying makes sense, and your reaction to what you’re reading here Precious Reader (whatever that reaction is) makes up part of a reasonable discussion. Thank you.
When you’re first admitted, or adopted into a family or household, you may or may not be recognized as an official (or even unofficial) member of that family. You may appear to participate or be allowed to do things as part of that family, but certainly you don’t assume to be part of that family, yet.
When you’re first engaged or accepted to work part-time or casually in an office or work site, you don’t automatically assume you’re an employee of said office / work site. At least, not on the first day, week or even month. You have to go through the motions, pass certain training procedures, and go through a process where you’re assessed if you’ve got what it takes to be an official part of that office or work site. And even then, after all that time, until the right people actually say so, you still can’t assume to be a real employee. Not just yet.
But wait a minute, kapeng mainit. What if, after a month, two month, six months, a year, a couple of years, FIVE years of being a not-yet-recognized member of the family, or casual employee of that work site you’ve grown to love, you still can’t or aren’t allowed to be a full member of the family or office?
What if, after more than five years, make that TEN years, after doing things everyone else does in that family or office / work site, regular and normal things, you’re no closer to being recognized as a full member of that family as you were on your FIRST day there?
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It’s a very rough analogy and the situations don’t match up, but if your instinctive response to the case/s above is “aba, mali naman yan. Wala namang puso yung boss or head of the family.” (that’s not right. the boss or head of the family is heartless and wrong), then i know your heart and mind is in the right place.
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ITAGO natin sya sa pangalang Roy (let’s call him Roy), although you and I know that’s not his real name. He remigrated to Auckland from Melbourne in 2007, as he and his family were told migration prospects in NZ were better than Aussie. obviously on a work visa, he managed to find work in a job, and another, and yet another. He never had a hard time looking and finding a job.
Yun nga lang (the only problem was), the rules on residency kept changing. Every time he started work and found a job he liked, he was told it didn’t pay enough or the skill wasn’t one that would give him a chance to apply for permanent residency.
Before I go further, let me explain. Ninety-nine percent of the people who come to work in New Zealand do so not just to earn money and feed their families, but ultimately to settle down, live a comfortable life and fulfill the dream of a peaceful and worry-free life in a First World country like New Zealand. Roy was no different from the 20,000-plus work visa holders coming in every year, working as hard as he could and eventually applying for residency.
In return for being a hard-working, law-abiding and team-oriented member of the New Zealand work force (if only as a guest worker), Roy had every right to expect to be at least, eligible to be invited to apply as a permanent resident in New Zealand. Many had become PRs (permanent residents) doing much less. Why not deserving people like Roy?
But here’s the thing: on the reasoning that, priority for hiring jobs must be first given to New Zealanders, that migrants mustn’t be allowed to take jobs for locals especially when times are hard, and government must look out first for its citizens, rulemakers keep “changing the goalposts” a diplomatic way of saying they keep changing the rules after the game has started.
And you know what? No matter how much government keeps insisting that rules need to be updated to give priority to hiring New Zealanders and the welfare of local workers, it is, diplomatically, ebak ng baka (please find a Filipino friend to translate this for non-Tagalog readers, sorry). New Zealand work visa holders have risen or have kept the same numbers the last ten years (except for last year, due obviously to the covid lockdown). New Zealand is among the top three in the OECD for work visa holders despite its relatively small population size.
From all indications, New Zealand likes its migrant work force but has no intention to ever give them corresponding rights as residents, as many many other rich nations do. It might as well be a Middle Eastern country in acts, though it likes to say the right things.
You take in a casual or adopt someone into your family. After 15 years, they’re still a casual. And the adopted member will never be a real member of the family. How is that right?
Just in case it’s not that clear (we’ve never been known to be clear in our posts), the worst-kept secret in New Zealand is that New Zealand not the kind country that it presents to be when it comes to migrant workers. And it’s at Filipinos’ expense, Pinoys who make up a meaty part of the 20,000 work visas issued by Immigration New Zealand every year.
When the Prime Minister mentions kindness as part of her Government’s vision, you can bet work visa holders are far away, hard at work in the basement, working 12-hour night shifts. If they ever heard the kindness talk, it would sound just like a campaign ad. Sounds good, but meaningless.
By the way, Roy has not given up on his 15-year dream of residency for his family in New Zealand. But the way things are going, it will take a major miracle for things to go his way.
God bless you and family Roy, thanks for reading!
I will post my reply when I finish my lunch. Still digesting your post.