Photo: RNZTelecommunications company Chorus failed to prevent migrant worker exploitation by relying too heavily on its subcontracted firms, an independent review has found. Last year the Labour Inspectorate alleged widespread exploitation and breaches of labour standards by one in every five of Chorus' subcontracted firms, whose workers were rolling out the ultra-fast broadband network nationwide. Chorus' own investigation, which included its service companies Visionstream and UCG, found another 33 subcontracted delivery partners had possibly breached standards, extending the scale of breaches to one-in-three firms. A review by the corporate consulting firm MartinJenkins found Chorus' board did not act on concerns it received as early as 2016. While Chorus was disappointed in itself and the breaches were mostly low level, there were no safeguards in place to prevent more breaches, the report said.

Source: Otago Daily Times April 11, 2019 22:30 UTC