Worker exploitation is a national disgrace
Date
March 26, 2016
Sydney Morning Herald
We learned a lot, says BusinessDay's Adele Ferguson, after the company's co-owner and chairman Russ Withers answered questions at a senate hearing.
Edwin De Castro's account of his work life is harrowing: 60 to 70-hour working weeks, dangerous working conditions, gross underpayment of wages and overcrowded accommodation.
"We were six in one bedroom and another in a shipping container – while they were deducting $250 each week for each of us for our accommodation," says the Filipino 457-visa worker.
De Castro was one of dozens of people recruited by a labour hire company to work on a building site in Narrabri, NSW, until they were dismissed without notice and evicted from their accommodation.
"During the night they forced us to leave the premises, because we were living on the site. The police said that our contract had been terminated. They did not give any notice to us or inform us.
They forced us to leave the premises, otherwise they said they would charge us with trespassing. So we moved to a motel that night. They were planning to ship us out of the country to avoid any troubles," De Castro told a Senate inquiry into foreign worker exploitation.
Stories like De Castro's are all too common in industries where foreign workers on temporary visas are used.
Risk to economy
With 1.3 million foreign workers on visas, equivalent to one in 10 workers, it is becoming a big problem that could easily get out of control if it isn't addressed.
In most cases the workers are too afraid to speak out for fear of being deported or are threatened that they will put their families at risk back home.
Over the course of a year and 10 public hearings, the Senate inquiry, chaired by Senator Sue Lines, heard first hand evidence from victims, regulators, unions and academics, outlining cases of wage fraud, worker exploitation and in some cases slavery.
It has now released a report with the apt title "A National Disgrace: The Exploitation of Temporary Work Visa Holders".
Some of the recommendations are highly controversial, some are obvious, but everyone agrees that the current situation can't – and shouldn't – go on.
It cites a survey by United Voice found that of more than 200 international students, 25 per cent were receiving $10 or less an hour, 60 per cent were earning less than the national minimum wage and a massive 79 per cent knew little or nothing about their rights at work.
Controversial proposals
The more controversial recommendations relate to labour hire companies and the $170 billion franchise industry. A key recommendation is that Treasury and the ACCC review the franchising code of conduct and "whether there is scope to impose some degree of responsibility on a franchisor and the merits or otherwise of so doing".
This follows a joint media investigation of the country's biggest convenience store chain and franchise network 7-Eleven, which found systemic wage fraud and fabrication of payroll records across the 620 franchised stores.
The Senate didn't pull any punches. Armed with stinging criticism from Professor Allan Fels, the committee didn't buy arguments from billionaire and 50 per cent owner Russ Withers that "the 7-Eleven model had a 38-year track record as a very viable system".
The report said: "evidence to this inquiry challenged the notion put forward by 7-Eleven that it was unaware of the racket that its franchisees were running. The committee shares the view of many submitters and witnesses, that the protestations by the former chairman of 7-Eleven and other senior executives that they were simply unaware of the mass underpayment of employees defy belief".
It went further and said it was "wary of what appears to be a well-oiled public relations exercise that seeks to distance 7-Eleven from the practices of its franchisees".
The brutal reality is the franchise code needs to be revisited and franchisors do need to be more accountable for what their franchisees are doing.
Forum
Pages: 1 
