Jacob’s story

Jacob worked as a fruit picker in Australia while backpacking on a working holiday visa. He shared his story with Be Slavery Free.

I came to Australia in early 2017 on a working holiday visa (sub-class 417). My visa allowed me to stay in Australia for 12 months. One of the visa conditions were that I do 88 days’ work in regional Australia in a specified industry. The most common or easiest work for a backpacker to secure is on fruit or vegetable farms, typically known in the backpacker community as ‘fruit picking’ or just ‘farm work.’

I was offered a job on a large farm that grew capsicums, melons, and butternut pumpkins. I stayed on this farm until the end of my 88 days.

Everyone who worked on the farm was offered part time contracts at 20 hours per week. But I quickly found that the hours were 66 hours per week. If you didn’t want to work more than the contracted hours, then the farm and hostel would replace you. I later found out that the farmer put staff on part time contracts rather than casual contracts or temporary full time was because they could pay the staff a lesser amount. We were not given holiday or sick leave entitlements.

A friend of mine was a good picker. One day he had a hand injury caused by a blunt knife which the farmer gave him to work with (no PPE was provided). He got his hand bandaged up but because of his pain he wasn’t able to pick all the fruit and was sacked for missing too much fruit.

The farmer did not allow male staff to work in the packing shed. He worked in the packing shed with lots of young backpackers and would often touch them and make sexualised comments. No one put in a complaint and just got on with it.

I had a Belgian friend who came to the hostel. He was only there a few days. On an evening we would play cards and have a beer. One day he did not return back to the hostel, and later died of heatstroke. His farmer did not supply him water or let him have shade when he needed it. The farmer was eventually fined $65,000 in 2020. $65,000 for a life.

I eventually finished my 88 days. There’s a popular movie called ‘8 years a slave’. Although it’s not the same, the farm work is known to backpackers as ‘88 days a slave’.

This was just my experience, which wasn’t bad compared to others, but thousands of people each year have the same experience, if not worse.