Laurie Berg and Bassina Farbenblum write for The Conversation.
About 7% of our workforce holds a temporary visa. When many international students, backpackers and other temporary visa holders suddenly left during COVID, the ensuing staff shortages revealed how vital these workers are to the Australian workforce.
Responding to industry demands for workers, a new agriculture visa was created, Labor has promised an extended Pacific Australia Labour Mobility Scheme, and international students were given unlimited work rights.
But the government elected on May 21 will inherit Australia’s dark legacy of entrenched wage theft among migrant workers.
A recent open letter signed by 14 legal service providers, churches and other advocacy organisations across Australia has called on the government to enact three key reforms to address theft of migrant workers’ wages:
- enable migrant workers to act against exploitative employers by providing effective visa protections to whistle-blowers who report exploitation to the Fair Work Ombudsman or make claims through the courts.
- implement an efficient, accessible, and inexpensive claims process for workers to promptly recover their wages and entitlements; and
- extend the Fair Entitlements Guarantee to employees on temporary visas (a scheme of last resort that provides unpaid employee entitlements when an employer becomes insolvent).
Exploitation flourishes because regulators do not routinely detect or punish labour law noncompliance. Most workers cannot pursue their employer directly because the system is stacked against them at every stage of the wage claim process.
The Employment Rights Legal Service (ERLS), which helps exploited migrant workers in NSW and coordinated the open letter, has said many migrant workers don’t complain because they fear losing their visa or job. For many, their fear is well-founded. One ERLS client, Sofia, told them:
I might quit and try and recover my wages and my power in the future but for now, my visa is my main concern and I just want to leave this stress behind me.
Sofia had submitted to her employer’s unlawful demands to repay part of her wages and unwittingly committed a migration offence. This could result in the cancellation of her visa if brought to the immigration department’s attention.
Another international student client, a cleaner, put it:
My visa is my main concern: 100%. I’m not going to risk my visa to chase my wages if there is only a chance or a hope that the government will protect me.
Curbing forced labour and modern slavery
In 2019, a whole-of-government migrant worker task force made 22 detailed recommendations.
The government announced its support for all the recommendations but has implemented almost none.
Since then, many parliamentary inquiries have echoed these recommendations and made others. These recommendations, too, have been largely ignored.
It is time for an Australian government to set its sights higher and adopt an evidence-based and systemic approach to tackling migrant exploitation, learning from approaches that are working in other countries.
If Australia is genuinely committed to ensuring labour compliance and curbing forced labour and modern slavery, it cannot afford to miss this opportunity.
Read the full article here. (16 May 2022)
