It is most unfortunate that MB is reduced to being the only media in the country that is tracking Albo lunatic immigration policy but what else can we do?
The latest battleground is labour hire:
Big business has accused the Albanese government of pursuing ideological restrictions on casual employees and labour hire that would entrench “outdated” work practices and undermine its supposed support of enterprise bargaining.
The Business Council of Australia has raised concerns that the promised in-depth consultation on the laws is superficial, as fears grow of another ambush similar to multi-employer bargaining measures at the Jobs Summit last September.
The BCA’s members’ employees at BHP, Qantas and Wesfarmers are likely to be among those most affected by the government’s second tranche of workplace reforms because of the high use of labour hire in mining, aviation and casuals in retail.
And I thought that slavery was the more outdated notion. Sill me.
Labour Hire is one way in which migrant slave labour is exploited:
Late last year, a class action was lodged against labour hire firms exploiting Pacific Island workers under the Seasonal Worker Program (SWP), in what was described as a “pandemic of worker abuse” .
The parliamentary inquiry into establishing a modern slavery act was also scathing of Labour Hire firms:
Committee view
9.146 The Committee recognises that recent Commonwealth, state and territory inquiries have highlighted the role that unscrupulous labour hire companies play in contributing to the exploitation of migrant workers…
9.150 While the Committee acknowledges that a labour licensing scheme is no ‘silver bullet’ to stopping exploitation and modern slavery, it considers that taken together with the Australian Government’s existing measures and the recommendations of this report, it will assist to improve protections for migrant workers…
Recommendation 48
9.152 The Committee recommends that the Australian Government establish a uniform national labour hire licensing scheme, consistent with recommendations by the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Law Enforcement, the Joint Standing Committee on Migration and the Senate Education and Employment References Committee. This licensing scheme should incorporate random audits and unannounced inspections of labour hire firms to ensure compliance.
Labor is right to attack it but Labour Hire takes many formal and informal forms. The grey areas that can be occupied by unscrupulous middlemen offering the fig leaf that every business needs to get away with hiring cheap foreign labour are wide amid record immigration inflows.
Expect an undiminished boom in wage theft.
