Fruit pickers ripped off by bad apples in industry
More than half of the businesses employing fruit pickers breached workplace laws.
The Australian
November 22, 2018
An inquiry into Australia’s horticulture industry has found the amount of wages ripped off from workers is “significantly higher” than the $1 million in unpaid wages recovered for 2500 workers employed on the trail over the past five years.
Since 2013, the Fair Work Ombudsman has investigated 638 Harvest Trail businesses — 444 growers and 194 labour hire contractors — connected with the harvesting of crops including citrus, grapes, strawberries, cherries, mushrooms, apples and tomatoes.
More than half of the businesses breached workplace laws, including deliberate and significant underpayments of base pay rates, falsification of records, deliberate withholding of pay slips, non-payments and unauthorised deductions.
“As a result of these activities, the FWO recovered $1,022,698 for 2503 employees,’’ a report of the inquiry’s findings says.
“As Fair Work inspectors were unable to assess and determine the full extent of underpayments in many cases due to issues such as poor record-keeping, cash payments and a transient workforce, the FWO believes the full extent of worker underpayments is significantly higher than this.”
During the five-year-inquiry, court action was taken against eight employers for serious alleged breaches of the Fair Work Act.
Six cases have been finalised, resulting in more than $500,000 in penalties, and two remain before the court.
Inspectors issued 150 formal cautions to employers, 132 infringement notices and 13 compliance notices for breaches of workplace laws, and struck seven enforceable undertakings.
Almost 70 per cent of Harvest Trail businesses employ visa holders, with working holiday subclass 417 visa holders, aged 18 to 31, the most common migrant workers on the trail.
The report says the incentive to obtain a second visa means workers may be willing to accept substandard pay and conditions and unscrupulous employers can use this as leverage to pay less or withhold pay.
“The inquiry found some labour hire contractor companies that may have been operating in breach of the Corporations Act 2001,’’ the report says.
Fair Work inspectors interacted with 237 incorporated labour hire contractors and identified that 271 individuals had been appointed as directors of these entities. Of this number, 92 of the directors were visa holders, including 22 per cent on working holiday visas and 18 per cent on student visas.
To participate in the government’s Seasonal Worker Program, an employer must apply to the Jobs and Small Business Department to become an approved employer and must obtain the approval of the Home Affairs Department to become an approved temporary activities sponsor.
The Fair Work Ombudsman, Sandra Parker, said the inquiry exposed widespread noncompliance along the Harvest Trail.
“Our inquiry highlighted unacceptable practices of underpaying workers in one of Australia’s largest rural industries,’’ she said.
ACTU secretary Sally McManus said the inquiry “found exactly the same thing that every wage theft and worker exploitation inquiry in recent memory has found — systemic wage theft and exploitation, especially of vulnerable workers”.Fruit pickers ripped off by bad apples in industry.
Forum
Pages: 1 
