The NFF president, Fiona Simson, said considering benefits including food in approving workplace pay deals would be “transparent” and ensure “they are considered upfront, and everybody is very clear about the intention of that arrangement”.
Simson told Guardian Australia that farm employers offer a range of non-monetary benefits to workers including accommodation, electricity, food and fuel.
“It just makes sense to be making sure you can contemplate the particular nature of the farming business and the benefits that are provided to the workforce [in bargaining]."
“There’s a lot of opportunities there, particularly with the cost of living at the moment, those sorts of expenses can be very high for people.
“Providing those things as benefits or part of salaries is something that makes sense to consider for people working in rural and regional Australia.”
The Australian Workers Union national secretary, Daniel Walton, said “the days of vulnerable workers being ‘paid’ with food instead of money should be long behind us … if you work in Australia you deserve the Australian minimum wage and not a cent less”.
Walton acknowledged some jobs in remote locations required employers to provide accommodation and other essentials but “at no point” should these “be considered some kind of ‘service’ for which workers are expected to forgo pay”.
Not to mention massive alcoholism epidemic in eastern Europe in XIX century which got culturally internalized and is ravaging the region ever since, even if greatly lessened. Probably tens if not hundreds of millions dead and incalutated misery.
And it’s played off as a joke in the West. “Oh those silly Eastern Europeans, drinking vodka for breakfast again!”
Alcohol has been internalised in culture, a lot of the vodka jokes, while greatly exaggerated, have a grain of truth in it. We still can’t get over it, even socialism despite constantly trying, failed to get rid of that baggage.