The precarious nature of employment in the construction industry contributes to Pacific peoples’ unwillingness to engage in health and safety protocols.244 Pacific workers will not report incidents or object to managers for fear of losing employment, which undermines their ability to support and contribute to the wellbeing of their family and community outside of work. In many instances, this is compounded by Pacific construction workers overworking themselves to please superiors and maintain a good image and will unwillingly work overtime when requested to do so.245 As Chen points out, if Pacific workers had secure work, there would be little fear of employment loss and lower injury and overworking rates amongst Pacific construction workers.246 5.3 Pacific peoples’ experiences in the workplace: manufacturing 5.3.1 Health and safety and Pacific peoples in manufacturing As with the construction industry, research on Pacific workers’ experiences of the manufacturing industry is dominated by focusing on workplace health and safety. The manufacturing industry accounts for the largest proportion of ACC workplace claims, with Māori and Pacific workers consistently having the highest reporting rates and lowest acceptance rates.247 The same issues regarding cultural differences between Pacific and Western workplace culture are also raised in research on Pacific experiences of the manufacturing industry that were raised in research on the construction industry.248 However, the Department of Labour’s 2012 research paper In Harm’s Way noted that their participants had a strong understanding of their workplace role and its health and safety commitments.249 Pacific workers in the manufacturing industry also raise experiences of miscommunication owing 34 to different cultural rules for speaking to those in power.250 However, the problem of cultural disconnect is far more frequently raised by Pākehā managers in the manufacturing industry than by Pacific workers themselves. Pacific workers more often express that their failure to report incidents or communicate ideas or dissent is due to a fear of losing their employment or income, precisely because it impacts their ability to support their family and community.251 For instance, one employee remarked: “I’ve had an injury in my back, but I still force myself, you know, that Samoan thing I got to make this money for family, can’t complain about it.”252 Since then, the Department of Labour was integrated into the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE). In 2018, MBIE released a report evaluating the Puataunofo programme253 –a workplace health and safety education initiative delivered by WorkSafe New Zealand focused on providing key health and safety messages to Pacific workers, taking into account the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015. The evaluation report found that the programme was constrained in its ability to operate at scale. It did, however, find that the programme solved two problems – raising the engagement of Pacific staff with efforts to promote health and safety in the workplace and directly supporting businesses to adapt to the growing diversity of their workforce. 5.3.2 Racism and Pacific peoples in manufacturing As the Department of Labour notes, the assumption made by Pākehā employers that Pacific workers do not report issues or share ideas because they do not understand their instructions indicates that racism is evident in the manufacturing industry.254 Pacific manufacturing workers describe feeling as though they have to conceal their culture to keep their employment and describe management as disempowering, unwilling to hear workers’ 244 Chen, National Culture, 44. 245 Feilo, “Talanoa,” 67; Chen, National Culture, 43-45. 246 Chen, National Culture, 44. 247 Department of Labour, In Harm’s Way, iii, 1; Powell, ACC’s Delivery to Priority Populations: Part 2 - Pāsifika Peoples, 1-2. 248 Chen, National Culture, 42-43; Department of Labour, In Harm’s Way, 58. 249 Department of Labour, In Harm’s Way, 30. 250 Department of Labour, In Harm’s Way, 52, 58. 251 Department of Labour, In Harm’s Way, 32 253 Department of Labour, In Harm’s Way, 32. 254 Department of Labour, In Harm’s Way, 46.