Chief Advocate Rachel Mackenzie said that unfortunately there had been many well publicised examples of workers being mistreated in the horticulture industry. “The seasonal nature of the industry and a transitory workforce increase the vulnerability of our workers to exploitation despite many growers operating ethically.”

“Growcom, along with many other industry representative bodies, is keen to show leadership in this area and ensure growers across Australia are completely across their obligations,” she said.

“Labour is the single biggest cost for most growers, so shonky operators who treat their workers poorly can significantly undercut the many growers or labour providers doing the right thing and push prices down. Our industry employs large numbers of working holidaymakers and people from non-English speaking backgrounds who tend not to engage with employee support services. By targeting employers rather than the workers, themselves, we are hoping to see a significant improvement in the treatment of these workers across the industry.

“This funding will enable us to roll out our workplace relations Best Management Practice module (Hort360) nationally to provide growers with one-on-one risk assessments of their current practices. Using data generated by this process, Growcom will develop targeted workshops dealing with specific areas of non-compliance or concern, improving employment standards across the industry.”

In conjunction with the Hort360 program, Growcom will be partnering with the on-farm assurance program, Freshcare, to develop an ethical treatment of workers certification to enable growers to demonstrate (through a third party audit) they are meeting best practice standards.

“It is our objective to engage with the big players in the supply chain to gain recognition of this certification rather than using overseas systems that are less relevant in the Australian context and just add another compliance burden on to growers,” Mackenzie said.

“A long term objective of this program is to facilitate growers to undertake formal training in human resources (HR) to build a ‘beyond compliance’ culture within the industry.

“At a policy level, we are also keen to explore options for working more closely with the Labour Hire industry and have participated in national discussions concerning a labour hire certification program with other industry players such as the National Farmers’ Federation.

“As an organisation, we are very excited to have the opportunity to be part of the solution to this significant issue and ensure that all our growers do the right thing by their workers.”