Australia’s foreign worker visa system has surely hit farcical proportions.
First, there’s the widespread exploitation of foreign student workers, as revealed in no uncertain terms by the joint Fairfax-Four Corners investigation into 7-Eleven’s labour hiring practices, along with revelations that international student colleges have taken cash kickbacks in return for helping overseas workers and students win Australian visas using fake qualifications (see here and here).
Then there’s Australia’s flawed temporary “skilled” 457 visa system, which has seen foreign workers flood into the cities to work in professions that are either not particularly “skilled”, in short supply, or critical to the economy, such as cooks/chefs, cafe/restaurant staff, call centre/customer service, and accounting, 80% of whom have not undergone any kind of labour market testing to determine whether an Australian is available to do the job.
Now, the Senate has released its interim report into Australia’s temporary work visa programs and found that the Working Holiday Maker (WHM) visa system has also been subject to widespread rorting, with “stark” reports of “systemic abuse” of the WHM visa program, including the deliberate and systemic underpayment of wages, excessive work hours, and fraudulent record keeping:
…it was observed that labour hire agencies in overseas countries line up full-time work for their nationals in Australia before those nationals even enter Australia.
The exploitation of vulnerable migrant workers on WHM visas and the role of labour hire contractors and sub-contractors in the systematic abuse of the WHM visa program were brought to life in stark terms during the committee’s inquiry.
The committee received evidence over several hearings about labour hire companies recruiting workers overseas in Hong Kong, Taiwan and South Korea. Recruitment typically occurred via Facebook advertisements containing information about work opportunities at certain meat processing plants in Australia…
The migrant workers detailed a series of breaches of Australia’s workplace laws including the deliberate and systemic underpayment of wages, long shifts of up to 18 hours without overtime payments, a lack of standard record-keeping such as wage slips, and false and misleading timesheets designed to conceal the actual hours worked by migrant visa holders. The workers also provided evidence about deductions for accommodation in sub-standard conditions in a share house…
The committee received evidence that certain sectors of the economy such as hospitality are notorious for non-compliance with workplace laws and are governed by precarious work norms…
In this regard, the committee notes that the extent of exploitation associated with the WHM and student visas in particular also raises questions about the degree to which the exploitation of temporary migrant workers is systemic rather than just an issue associated with a few rogue employers.
As I keep pointing out, the Department of Employment’s latest skills shortages report revealed that skills shortages have all but vanished, with “more than enough applicants with relevant qualifications, or appropriate skills and experience, for vacancies in almost every occupation”. It also noted that “in 2014-15, there was an average of 13.6 applicants for each skilled vacancy (15.8 for professions and 12.1 for technicians and trades), of whom an average of 2.2 were considered by employers to be suitable”.
So based on the Department of Employment’s own analysis, the case for the large scale importation of foreign workers is thin. Most of these jobs could be filled locally with a little bit of training.
With unemployment likely to rise significantly over 2016 and 2017 on the back of falling mining investment, falling dwelling construction, and the closure of the car assembly industry, the Government would do well to clean up the labour migration system before bitterness over foreigners “taking our jobs” escalates.
YOU MAY ALSO BE INTERESTED IN
Dr Liz Allen has no idea what she is talking about
None: Next time you hear people bang on about
Why the urgency for an Indonesian FTA?
By Leith van Onselen The Morrison Government
Another student-migration rort emerges
By Leith van Onselen MB has argued ad nauseum
Infrastructure Australia warns again on population crushing liveability
By Leith van Onselen Earlier this month, the
Several years ago I ‘intervened’ on behalf of an English backpacker to get his passport returned so he could leave a working hostel at which he was staying and there remained an unpaid account (disputed).
The crux of the issue was in my view the parallel to the method of debt bondage an old favorite of the industries whose cornerstone is trafficking and exploitation of foreigners.
Many of these visa schemes will no doubt will look surprisingly similar to people trafficking as debt bondage is a key ‘test’.
Maximum term is 25 years for people trafficking.
The last removalist I had were on working holidays, one of them told me he had been working for a foxtel subcontractor who owed him 3 weeks pay, and he received a phone call that equipment had gone missing and that he was being blamed, even though he had moved onto other work.
PS
If there is a nexus between the visa agent, (the fees and other costs are deferred of partially deferred ie debt) and an exploitative employer before the employee arrives, then I believe the AFP should be investigating possible people trafficking in addition to fair work investigation for breaches of award.
Let’s be honest here.
This is the dream of the LNP and big business. If you honestly think they want anything actually done about it, I have a bridge I can sell you.
Most of these cases that are coming out are actually perpetrated by small business.
Big business may want lower wages, but at least they have people in their HR and Finance departments who feel compelled to follow the law. Small businesspeople seemingly don’t have such convictions.
For starters try the meat processing industry… expand…
+1 Skippy – Know that first hand when I visit the abattoirs that process our cattle in QLD. 80% of the dirty work jobs are not Australian. Aside from the Halal certified staff that are Aussie citizens (spoke to quite a few of them), the majority of the workers I see in the boning room are asian workers supplied by work hire companies with little to no english. I know the wages paid to the labour hire company are award, but I can bet you that the workers do not receive any where near that amount.
Bigger companies are more adept at hiding things for longer.
I met a Taiwanese couple recently who were caught up in this meatpacking nightmare. Had to arrive on site every morning at 5 am or something ridiculous just to learn whether or not they even had a shift. Living in a crappy house in a new, middle-of-nowhere housing estate in suburban Brisbane. Needless to say they were not having a good time and looking to leave soon. (One was ex-miliary in Taiwan and I can’t remember the other, but some kind of professional.) I felt really sorry for them and am sure they will never come back to Australia again, even for a holiday.
Jason, you mean like 7-11??
7-11 is a franchise in Australia. The buck largely stops with the owner-operator, a small businessperson.
Jason its the business model straight out of Dallas Texas, they have the same issues in America imo.
Below-award labour, first from slavery and recently from illegal immigrants, has always been a cornerstone of the US economy and key to its competitiveness and flexibility. It’s a dark and murky practice which “gets the job done” for business.
It’s been going on here for ages too – whether it’s fruit pickers, taxi drivers, convenience store operators, chicken pluckers, trolley collectors, cleaners, abattoir workers – and these are just the ones I’ve actually said g’day to.
I hate it – it’s cheating. If another business tries to do the right thing then they will be undercut because their competitor is cheating to do it cheaper. It needs to be policed far more rigorously. If you can’t run your business while paying award wages then nick off, and if nobody else can run their business either, then the price of the goods or service might just have to go up a bit.
I guess the US will be in trouble if the supply ever slows then for example if immigration from Mexico slows.
Which hilarious when Rep’s crack a fat over immigration in the states and gives insight to the don’t legalize them but, we take their taxes all the same…
@ Skippy: Doublethink – an extremely effective form of cognitive protection.
“I hate it – it’s cheating. If another business tries to do the right thing then they will be undercut because their competitor is cheating”.
Exactly! Not only did a past employer of mine not pay correct super or wages, when they went bankrupt they just started up under a different ABN. Why should businesses doing the right thing have to continue to compete with these people?
See this is why I don’t understand small businesspeople get held up as some noble class to aspire to. Most of them are dodgy and breaking the law in some way, whether it’s on tax or exploiting workers, all so they can afford that jumbo mooring down at the harbour.
Yep 100%. Ive worked for a variety of “small” business over the years. Without exception exploitative a**holes the lot of them. Once turned up for an interview, only to be shown the door as soon as i walked into the room and said hello, the “manager” saying to me (and i quote) “you whitey want too much”. I worked for other various small business and it was just exploitative in total. Underpaid, unpaid overtime, problems with super payments, i mean if a business don’t pay your super for 4 years you expect the ATO to do something, but as far as i know they just got a small penalty. I got my super in the end, but they are still in business. So when i was sufficiently skilled i was able to get work in something larger than a small business and i swear i will never go back again.
” i mean if a business don’t pay your super for 4 years you expect the ATO to do something”
From my experience the ATO won’t do anything about unpaid super unless you specifically put in a complaint.
Having a boat and a boat mooring is such an integral part of doing business in Australia, the expenses associated with them (including the Lobster and Champagne) is or should be an automatic tax deduction.
And, as we are in the middle of the Spring Racing carnival, I assume the same applies to VRC and individual racecourse memberships, not to mention millinery expenses.
I’d say almost every cafe owner in Melbourne exploits their workers with cash in hand payment systems. No employee protection etc..
When little Johnny said “we will decide who comes to this country and the circumstances in which they come.” , he meant his mates in big business and small business alike.
Temporary work visa is akin to handing country’s sovereignity over to a bunch of ruthless rent seekers who will sell their young if necessary.
What John should have said instead was
‘Its very difficult for the government, businesses and migration agents to exploit asylum seekers arriving on a boat any further because the asylum seekers have already been fully exploited by the people smugglers…’
I’m worried that people will see the disgraceful exploition of foreign workers and mistakenly believe that the problem is largely confined to this group. Many low paid workers in Australia across many industries are victims of sham contracting and are not being paid their legal entitlements. Nobody says anything because it has become the norm and because it’s still better (just) than unemployment. Before the government even thinks about further labor market deregulation it should ensure that the current laws are actually enforced!
Although they’re being ripped off, these cleaners at Myer are probably still better off than many cleaners: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-10-22/one-of-australias-biggest-retailers-faces-claims/6878000
“I’m worried that people will see the disgraceful exploition of foreign workers and mistakenly believe that the problem is largely confined to this group”
The group that people think the problem is confined to should be unscrupulous businesses, unscrupulous migration agents AND Laberal Governments…
The government is there to act in the interests of its citizens (and PRs), not foreign workers. If we can pay them less then good luck to us. Exploitation? They’re not being enslaved, and are earning way more than they would in their home country – otherwise they wouldn’t be doing it.
Cheap temporary immigrant labor is used to suppress the wages of citizens (and PRs).
Sure it sux’s to be underpaid but to be honest it’s part of the transition from an economic model where Labour and Capital are both scarce and our growth is managed by balancing Labour and capital availability, too an economy where both are plentiful BUT know-how is scarce. This kinda explains the efforts in Australia to dumb down our schooling system….without a proper education knowhow and it’s physical realization as automation can be slowed thus extending the life of a completely broken economic model based around achieving this mythical balance between labour and capital.
Marx is dead ..capitalism might have killed the man but it was Technology that buried the idea.
Try reading The Great Transformation by Karl Polanyi for starters then refresh your views on Marx i.e. he did not write a palliative, only pointed out the machinations industrialism incurred wrt previous agrarian – artisan – landowner relationships and the new mercantile power – labour transformation. What others did in his name is another thing all together.
Skippy…. your triumphalism is a bit miss placed, AET and Neoclassical aka neoliberalism have been the drivers since post WWII. We are now entering post neoliberalisms early days, to ascribe events out more than a few months would necessitate time travel, models dont count imo.
Time mate, I thought you’d buried that concept long long ago Einstein vs Bergson etc. as for the neo anything tag….you know as far as western thinking goes I’m more of Libertarian than anything else but not in the modern sense rather more a believer in the roots of Libertarian-ism which are fundamentally Existential. If I held a firm belief in anything it’d be Bushido but with a slightly modified Honor concept that allowed self assessment.
The roots of libertarianism is in Christian Judaic religious beliefs about the metaphysical nature, their theology ascribes too, Locke, Proudhon, St, Augustine, all the way back to the Babylonian debates to PIE.
Sadly this is only one segment of human history and leaves all the rest edited out, 40 thousand years of increasingly granular forensic anthropology and other assorted disciplines using more accurate – robust methodology is a better set of optics by which to flesh out theory’s imo.
I mean come on, civilization as we know it started due to a climatic event forcing large populations spread out over Central Inland North Africa to the Nile delta, animalistic memes wrt metaphysical nature slowly morphed into humanistic….
As with the aforementioned splintered off into as the Center for the Study of Global Christianity at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary notes – estimated 34,000 denominations in 2000, rising to an estimated 43,000 in 2012, I’m completely bemused by the parallel increase in so called Libertarian denominations.
Do you see how the meme thingy works – ?????
Skippy…. Neo Confucius Libertarianism seeking to ad hoc template reality – ???? – by virtue of the perfected argument – ?????…. groan….
Caveat, I have no dramas with what some call social libertarian advancement, this is distinct from the more classical economic libertarianism.
Skippy,
Don’t forget Justinian and the Byzantine Empire. After all Constantinople was created by the Roman elites for the Roman elites because of the ethnic and cultural failure of the Roman Empire.
So I take it no legal action was taken against anyone involved in the 7-11 scam?
https://www.fairwork.gov.au/about-us/news-and-media-releases/2015-media-releases/august-2015/20150804-haider-penalty
https://www.fairwork.gov.au/about-us/news-and-media-releases/2015-media-releases/august-2015/20150831-amritsaria-litigation
These are cases from just before the Four Corners story – I suspect there will be a heap more, but it will take some time to work through the cases (The 18 months elapsed between the end of the workers’ tenure to the court appearance) .
The tip of the iceberg.
Stat’s right, and do not underestimate the ability and resolve of the FWO, the previous government’s best decision in that appointment, to prosecute this disgrace.
http://www.news.com.au/national/nsw-act/baiada-sets-aside-500000-after-workers-paid-chicken-feed-for-shifts-up-to-19-hours/story-fnii5s3x-1227582466932
“Many affected workers were 417 working holiday visa holders employed via labour hire contractors in China and Taiwan.”
Dont tell me these companies use an o/s recruitment firm like this without the expectation of getting cheap labor and thinking they will keep their hands clean.
A sibling of mine had a crappy job supervising cleaners for a contractor who did kindergartens and council offices. He got just the award wage. The biggest contract came up for renewal (the kinders) and his boss lost the contract. The new boss had quoted so low that it was a no brainer for winning the contract, however in order to run the business he offered all the workers a flat $14 per hour or be sacked, they were sacked, my brother was also offered a flat $15 per hour and was expected to use his own car to do his rounds with no expenses paid.
The new owner of the business then, of course took on a multitude of foreign ‘students’ who apparently did not mind $14 per hour so long as they did not really have to clean the toilets etc properly (according to the feedback heard from various sources). Hey, but its cheap and that is the only thing that matters.
A friend of mine took to driving buses part time, he says they took on a whole bunch of Irish drivers a couple of years ago, they also were paid a bit less than everyone else but within the award, many broke their contract and went home disillusioned with the cost of living in Australia vis a vis Ireland and its wages. My friends contract has just had its hours cut to an unreasonable level to do the same work.