Pompom can offer grape harvest advice, and daycat has picked fruit, but we rarely hear reports here from ppl who have done harvest type work. I was interested to read this letter in today's Sydney Morning Herald about picking blueberries (which I chuck on my brekie cereal most mornings....from now on I will be very careful I wash them!)
Berry picking conditions just not good enough
March 10, 2007
The Lismore soup kitchen operator is a blueberry farmer, so he would like the Reverend Tim Costello to have a word in his brother's ear about importing workers to pick blueberries ("If only they could just pick fruit", March 9). But perhaps he needs to look at why locals don't want to work for him.
A typical day for a casual picker on one Far North Coast blueberry farm begins like this: jump out of bed early, ring farm, get recorded message for start time. As often as not, it's "ring back in half an hour". This can go on for much of the morning.
When the message is finally "come in", pickers can arrive and still be told to wait. Blueberries can't be picked if they're wet, so a heavy dew or a light sprinkle of rain means further hold-ups. There is nowhere to sit while the waiting takes place, nor is there any shade from the merciless summer sun.
Sometimes after a long wait it may start raining - these are the sub-tropics after all, and it is officially the rainy season. So the pickers are sent home, the day is a write-off and needless to say there is no pay.
When picking is on, there is no set rate for a bucket of fruit picked. It varies from day to day, according to a bizarre system that relates to how much was picked the day before. Workers aren't told until the end of the day what the rate is, so there's no knowing whether the day's hard slog will be worth it in monetary terms.
And there are different types of berries, some easier to pick than others, but there is no difference in pay scale to recognise this. Nor is there any allowance made for standing on an uphill slope, putting extra strain on the legs. It's the same rate for all, and constant pressure to make no mistake in fruit selection.
Out in the fields that stretch as far as the eye can see, it is hot, hot, hot, and pickers must choose between hampering progress by carrying a water bottle or dehydrating. Portable toilets are scattered about, but there are no hand-washing facilities (think about this next time you buy a punnet of blueberries.)
If the blueberry farmer looked at making a few changes to working conditions for pickers, there would be no need to import people to an area of high unemployment.
Christine McNeil Mullumbimby
Yeah, when I read the original story about how pickers were desperately needed, I was tempted to post the article here for all those people desperate to exend their visas. Now I see the other side of it, I'm glad I didn't.
Yes, RYB that is the fact of fruit picking.
You are not always close to a toilet, on a farm or orchard, it can be far from the tree you first started at.
Some people do resort to go and pee out of sight of the rest of the pickers.
Peeing, is not so much of a problem as the worst thing, (which is why I say, don't eat so much on the night prior to pick), is the bomb drop. Now that is a horrid thought. Esp sans toilet paper.
Things will never change, its like the cleaning industry. Things never ever change, when its the workers who have to strife hard to meet targets/datelines/timelines.
No one cares about the worker, till something goes pear shaped, and then you will see what I mean. When times are good, the managers/owners of the orchard/farm don't give a it/fu.
If you slow down in picking however, that is when you get "shot".
The blueberries might sell for AUD$9.99 per 250g punnet, and the pickers get a pittance. While the middle person/supermarket/orchardist gets their cut, they don't care.
I know how hard it is to pick, and its no fun, its hard yakka.
People who just go to the supermarket and buy their fruits, they just don't know the process that has to be gotten through to get that fruit to you.
This is my only gripe for this weekend. Thank you for your patience.
I repeat, NO CHANGES.
Cleaning industry>>> your supervisor does not care why your speed of cleaning has gone down, not because you have found a blocked toilet bowl, or that something totally out of the ordinary has happened to slow you down.
Eg, if you have found that a staff member of the place you clean for, has split hole punch insert all over the floor, or has spilt lots of staple insert onto carpet, or that some twit has emptied the shredder, and that it takes time to scoop up the bits or it will get stuck in your vacuum cleaner, they don't care at all. They don't ask why you have slowed down in your cleaning KPI. Its only getting the bomb dropped on you.
If you work hard, they never ever give you a word of thanks.
You're right dc. You should come work with us....we have permanent cleaning staff who are paid a salary! Everyone knows who they are, and , gosh, we even talk to them as they do the initial rounds - bin emptying etc - beofre the end of the day. They also go to all our staff functions - morning teas, etc.
I am paid a salary, have been doing that schemozzle for over 5 years now.
You know, RYB, if I won lotto, and was able to at least buy a 1 bedroomer somewhere in Syd, I would move over there asap.
I know I can scrounge and live frugally, I don't drink and don't smoke, don't drive or have a car either, and the public transport runs (on some routes) till quite late, or start quite early.
Its a hard job, at least you know it.
But the thing is this, some workplaces, if you (or me, as the cleaner has erred), it goes into the comments book, asap. And thats the boom explosion.
You might not write small errs in the book, but some people do that.
Its good that you and the cleaning team in your workplace get along. Cleaning offices is very different from schools. Offices, its only very rarely that the place gets grotty everyday.
Schools is very different. Esp primary schools, high schools have diff problems, as do primary schools.
KPI (Key Performance Indicators) before in the past don't faze me at all, now, it gives me the heebie jeebies.
Worst is when the cleaning contract demands a lot to be done in that bare 2 hours of work.
2 hours to some sounds like a lot of time, but even cleaning 10 rooms, if they are very particular, plus toilets and lunch rooms, means that effectively a cleaner can only spend 6 mins a room, bare min.
Sorry to thread jack, miss.
Cleaning jobs, and fruit picking jobs, the hardest ones to do.
Trick is to be able to turn the brain cells off, and not miss any bins, not miss any spot or total vacuum, bare minimum of grey cells running on 1.5volts out of 240volts, methodically you go from room to room to room, every day the same routine.... Now you see why I am sometimes totally nuts.
Its a hard job, who would want to go into 12 cubicles everyday, day in day out, and see the same stuff, day in day out.
Oh, ps. I have also done office cleaning, and factory cleaning too.
Bugger, that 6 mins per room, bare maximum, not minimum.
Depending on per sq metrerage, that is how they decide how many cleaners a place would need.
Worst case scenario, is to find out that the other person does not turn up, and that there are only ever 2 cleaners in a work place.
Guess what this means, yes, a cleaner has to spend 4 hours cleaning, where as most normal shifts last 2 hours.
In the cleaning field, the more contracts a person can hold the better.
1 contract can mean 2.25 to 2.5 hours per day. 2 contracts with diff employers, can mean 4.5 to 5 hours per day. Some cleaners do 3 contracts with diff employers, thats 8 to 9 hours, sometimes you have to jump from one job to another.
Eg, mornings from 7am to 9am, shops before they open. 10am might be house cleaning, or nursing home or gym cleaning. 2.30pm to 3pm start for school cleaning. I have to get up at 5am to get ready, and don't home sometimes till 8pm. Thats when things go to plan. If not, Saturdays also have to spent working.
Sorry to bore you.
Will keep quiet now.
dc - I work in an office, not school. School cleaners have a pretty tough time; they work for huge corporate contractors and are treated like shit. 11 mins per classroom.
Our cleaners stay working with us for 20-30-40 years. I guess beign a union they have better workign conditions...eg 6 weeks annual leave, carers leave, 9 nine day fortnights, no split shifts, stuff like that.
trusted partner
