Amid the conga-line of evidence showing that temporary migrants have been ruthlessly exploited on Australia’s farms, which has frequently been labelled “modern slavery”, the Australian Workers Union (AWU) lodged an application with the Fair Work Commission (FWC) to amend the Horticulture Award to guarantee a minimum casual rate of pay for all farm workers.
In an historic victory for the AWU, the FWC yesterday ruled that every farm worker in Australia is entitled the minimum casual pay rate of $25.41 per hour:
In the biggest shake-up to Australia’s horticulture sector in decades, farmers will now be forced to pay a minimum wage to pickers after the Fair Work Commission ruled in favour of putting a floor in the award.
The move effectively abolishes piece rates, which is when a worker is paid according to how much they pick, rather than an hourly rate.
With piece rates, there has been no guarantee of workers making minimum wage, and the system has been linked to exploitation, with some workers claiming they have been paid as little as $3 an hour…
“The full bench was satisfied that the insertion of a minimum wage floor with consequential time recording provisions in the piecework clause is necessary to ensure that the horticulture award achieves the modern awards objective”…
Piece rates were legally meant to enable the average picker to earn at least 15% more an hour than the minimum hourly rate, but the FWC found they were widely used to underpay workers.
It found a “significant” proportion of pickers earned less than the national minimum wage.
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“The totality of the evidence presents a picture of significant underpayment of pieceworkers in the horticulture industry when compared to the minimum award hourly rate,” it said.The FWC also found that paying workers an hourly rate would actually make workers more productive…
“It is inherently unlikely that introducing a minimum wage floor will ‘disincentivise’ pieceworkers currently earning more than the minimum award rate,” it said.
AWU national secretary Daniel Walton said it was one of the most significant industrial decisions of modern times.
“Fruit pickers in Australia have been routinely and systemically exploited and underpaid,” Walton said.
“Too many farmers have been able to manipulate the piece rate system to establish pay and conditions far beneath Australian standards.”
As expected, the National Farmers Federation (NFF) issued a press release lambasting the decision:
A decision by the Fair Work Commission to bow to the Australian Workers’ Union’s demands and introduce a floor price on piece work rates will push many farmers’ wage costs to unsustainable levels and could drive horticulture’s most capable workers away from the industry, NFF CEO Tony Mahar said…
“Farmers want to ensure workers are paid fairly and they also want to be able to reward their most productive workers.
“The increase in wage costs, most farm’s largest input, threatens to make the most productive workers unaffordable. The loss of these workers will put a handbrake on agriculture’s growth, at a time when our country can least afford it,” Mr Mahar said…
Mr Mahar said the NFF had long called for a more streamlined and less complex industrial relations system…
“The Australian Workers Union should hang its hand in shame, in using this decision to cast an aspersion that all Australian farmers set out to deliberately rip off workers…
Mr Mahar said unbelievably, the findings of the FWC came at a time when horticulture was facing an unprecedented labour shortage…
Earth to NFF: maybe the reason why farms suffer labour shortages is because they pay slave wages and routinely exploit workers (especially migrants)?
The horticultural industry is ground zero for migrant wage theft, exploitation and ‘modern slavery’. The proof is undeniable.
As a counter-point, how is it that grain harvesters have had few problems attracting local workers by offering decent wages?
Programmed Skilled Workforce has been campaigning to get 3000 Australians working on the grain harvest doing blue-collar jobs.
In just three weeks they’ve had almost 2000 applications.
“We’ve been really pleased with the take-up,” executive general manager David Hele said.
“It’s a big mix of different people. It’s younger applicants, mature ones, males and females, people who are out of work due to COVID. School leavers and travellers.”
The pay ranges from $27 to $35 per hour for an average 30-60 hour working week.
There was more interest from locals to take up these harvest jobs because there was less risk of being exploited, he said.
CBH also recently filled 2000 harvest positions with local workers by paying a base rate of $29 an hour.
Last year we also heard repeated claims that many Australian farms had refused to employ local workers because they have to be paid a legal wage and are far less easy to exploit than migrants.
This suggests that Australia’s farms could source local ‘fruit pickers’ if they abandoned exploitative piecemeal rates in favour of decent hourly rates, as ruled by the FWC.
Any industry that relies on exploiting migrant labour to thrive is not a sustainable industry. It needs fundamental structural reform.
Well done AWU and FWC.
