By Mataeliga Pio Sioa
When talk of our Samoan RSE workers come up it’s difficult to hide the pride of hearing the praises coming from the farm owners they work under.
Many have stayed beyond their 6 months contract for extended work arrangements that will mean more take home money for families in Samoa.
For an unfortunate few, it ended in tragedy. Fatal road accident took them away from their loved ones, who are forced to mourn their huge loss.
The RSE scheme continues. All who are contracted for farm work either in New Zealand or Australia add more working hours.
Whatever earnings they made helps to raise living standards at home. This is the driving force that shows up clearly from farm owners pleased with the quality of work.
Lautafi Selafi Purcell feels very blessed to have a role in the scheme as the Cabinet Minister with the portfolio to administer these work opportunities.
He has first hand experience of the work too. In his younger days he would spend the school holidays doing the same kind of farm work to earn pocket money.
But picking along a long row of fruits that stretches as far as the eye can see is backbreaking and nothing to brag about back home.
Yet nobody talks about the stress and the strain they go through.
The one common factor they all speak about when asked by the ‘palagi’ is to earn money to help the family.
Are we special in that way? Maybe! Every race of people is special in their own ways and we are too. Our culture and upbringing are major influences.
The focus should be directed not at being excellent scheme workers but on the longterm benefits.
The RSE scheme is a blessing for our unemployed labour force and a win-win situation for everyone.
But for how long will this opportunity or benefits last?
The labour intense workload will eventually take its toll. Part of the worry is how long these labour workforces from the islands will still be around.
Will the demand for outside workers still remain over the long haul?
What if it will eventually peter off because of some new mechanized invention or other cheaper options that will make our physical muscle unneeded?
We also cannot go through life picking apples and pears in New Zealand and Australia to feed our families.
Fortunately we are already thinking along those lines. The term they like to throw around is sustainable income earning.
What that is supposed to mean is looking to invest your fruit picking earnings in a business you can run at home and continue to earn income.
The Business Hub is already into encouraging that but the question is whether there are enough business opportunities around to attract the interest in investment.
The added challenge is to expand the areas of business for these workers to make them want to spend their money on.
One of the criticisms against the RSE scheme is how it takes our labour force away from developing all that land lying undeveloped in the villages.
This gives rise to the question of why we are not as keen to put in the hard work on our own land as we are for the ‘palagi’ farms we are being praised for?
One way to look for answers to the question is motivation or lack of it. The difference between working on your own land and working on some foreign farm is what you get out of it.
An apple farm in Hawkes Bay or some strangely named place in Melbourne will earn you enough to build a ‘palagi’ house and even a car in a year or so.
A taro patch in your backyard is not going to fetch enough to buy Sunday to’ana’i and give generously to the ‘faifeau’ so your family can enjoy extra blessings from the Lord.
What would it take to win the kind of motivation and subsequent rewards that will encourage our men folks to develop our land?
Why are New Zealand farmers prepared to pay well for Samoan RSE workers to work on their farms? What is the motivation for them?
If the New Zealand farmers can motivate themselves to work around the clock to make their money, why not us?
Granted the same trend of thinking has been around for sometime but if it has anything to do with lack of funding to encourage investing in local business, maybe we have an answer here with the RSE scheme.
But how can we make it work? Where can you find the kind of motivation for our labour force to step up on an equal footing with their New Zealand and Australian counterparts?
For the RSE workforce the transition should be easy enough.
If they have acres and acres of customary land left fallow and they have earnings to invest from their hard labour what is the motivation they need?
Lord, would you like to drop a few hints for our hardworking RSE labour force to get them fired up?
