Prisoners paid 20c an hour to pick fruit

Prisoners have been recruited to pick fruit for between 20c and 60c an hour to help plug a desperate labour shortage on two Hawkes Bay orchards.

Unions representing fruit-pickers and prison officers have condemned the move because of the low pay rate and lack of training for the prisoners.

But orchardists welcomed the move, which comes right at the peak of seasonal demand for labour.

"The more hands we can have the better," said Hawkes Bay Fruitgrowers Association executive officer Diane Vesty.

At this time of year the district's fruit-growers need about 15,000 workers, about seven times more than in the rest of the year.

Corrections Association president Beven Hanlon, a prison officer at Hawkes Bay Prison, said 20 prisoners started work on Saturday for a contractor supplying labour to orchards in Meeanee and Haumoana.

"They are hoping to get up to 60," he said.

The Corrections Department said the contractor paid the department normal contract rates for the prisoners' labour, and the department paid the prisoners "a small incentive allowance which ranges from 20c to 60c an hour".

"Any residue is used to cover the costs of transport and supervision," it said.

The pay rate is about the same as for other prison work, but is less than a tenth of the outside legal minimum of $9.50 an hour.

Mr Hanlon said the two officers being used to guard the prisoners had been drawn from the ranks of custodial officers, not from the prisons' business arm which normally hires prisoners for work, Corrections Inmate Employment (CIE).

This meant they were getting no training and would not earn any credits towards vocational unit standards such as a generic health and safety unit, which most prisoners get on prison work.

The move appeared to be designed to undermine industrial action by CIE's training instructors, who have not received a pay rise since the business unit was created in 2002.

The instructors have given notice of a one-day strike on March 15 to support a 9 per cent pay claim.

"I do know there's a shortage of horticultural workers, and if done properly, this would be a very good idea," Mr Hanlon said. "They are just going about it the wrong way."

The Amalgamated Workers Union, which represents fruit-pickers, said the move raised some questions.

"We are concerned," said Hawkes Bay organiser Mark Anderson. "There is a going rate for fruit-picking which is about $30 a bin. They are expected to do five bins a day."

But the project manager of the Hawkes Bay Horticultural Contractors group, Warren Temperton, said the unemployment register was "just about non-existent" at this time of year, so the prisoners were not taking work from anyone else.

The president of the Howard League for Penal Reform, Auckland lawyer Peter Williams, said prisoners had always been exempt from the minimum wage laws and the move was welcome.

"It's better for them to be out there picking apples and so forth than just sitting in their cell looking at the wall."