In contrast to its constant railing against unions and the CFMMEU, the government is almost completely silent on the issue of wage theft. A union official only has to jaywalk for a minister to condemn their lawbreaking and link Bill Shorten to it. But literally industrial-scale wage theft by business gets nary a mention from the government. Last year, government senators dissented from a Senate committee report examining wage theft and superannuation non-payment and failed to mention the issue at all, instead attacking — you guessed it — the CFMMEU and accusing Labor of allowing unions to abuse Senate committee processes.
In 2018 alone, the Fair Work Ombudsman has issued 76 media releases about separate cases of underpayment by employers, including repeated mass audits that have found massive levels of underpayment. Right now, the FWO is conducting a mass audit of 600 businesses in the Northern Rivers region of NSW.
This week the FWO also revealed the result of another mass audit of 638 businesses in the farming sector along the Harvest Trail, uncovering widespread underpayment of workers and over half of businesses breaching workplace laws. As so often happens with underpayment, the victims were often migrants, people of non-English speaking background, or students, who are more isolated, struggle to communicate and can be threatened with deportation if they complain. “The inquiry found that almost 70 per cent of harvest trail businesses employed visa holders. Working holiday subclass 417 visa holders (aged 18-31 years old) were the most common migrant workers on the trail,” the FWO said.
Perhaps that’s also why the Coalition doesn’t care that much about wages theft, as well?
This is Coalition heartland — the agricultural sector that so often has its hand out for government assistance when times get tough — even while exploiting previous schemes designed to help them when times get tough. Perhaps the government could make it a condition of drought relief that anyone found to have underpaid workers is automatically disqualified from receiving it? Or, given the massive scale of wage theft, would that knock off too many recipients?
Wage theft doesn’t directly affect wage growth indices like the Wage Price Index, which is compiled by surveying employers, not employees. But it affects wages more generally: if employers can get away with underpaying workers — foreign or not — then it puts additional downward pressure on wages elsewhere in the sector and, indirectly, across the broader economy. And the tens of millions — perhaps more — that employers underpay each year usually comes from the pay packets of the lowest-income workers, who spend a far higher proportion of their income than the rest of us. Wage theft undercuts demand as well as wage levels.
Still, it’s a non-issue as far as the government is concerned.
What should the federal government be doing about wage theft? Write to boss@crikey.com.au and let us know.
This is nothing new and is in no way limited to the agricultural sector. This is an economy wide rort being perpetrated on workers and given a nudge and a wink by the Coalition.
Anyone who was unfortunate to have sat through the recent Drum episode with Judith Sloan and some 50 year old grey haired suit shouting at the head of the ACTU will also have witnessed their response to workers right to withdraw labour..on that issue they are adherents to black letter law, on worker rights to be paid fairly, not so much. Sloan was lightening fast in claiming that any shortcoming in the FWC or laws on industrial disputes were ALP policy and so ripe for exploitation…”It’s the ALP’s FWC commission” she bleated.
Employer groups in Australia must have creamed their daks when they saw the woolly headed twins Kelty and Hawke approaching them at high speed with an “accord”. Bob was famous for creating strikes which he then resolved as Union Boss and he was buggered if he was going to have some other smart arse do the same thing when he was PM. That accord has seen a continual degrading of Union membership and saw a shift in the ALP to dabbling with “economic rationalism”. That was the day the ALP gave up on the idea of looking after workers.
So I vote ALP because they are the best of a shit-house lot of choices. I’m under no illusion about Chris Bowen or Bill Shorten. Neither of them could give a rats about my welfare, particularly Bowen.
Good to see that someone else remember Ancient History – “the woolly headed twins Kelty and Hawke ..” not forgetting the 3rd Stooge or Mouseketeer of Monetarism, PJK.
I’d be happy were that trio burnt in effigy, failing the real thing, each May Day.
Very simplistic article -perhaps written by journalists – the Northern Rivers of NSW is hardly the CBD of NSW- so it would be made up of mostly struggling small businesses – the reasons why small businesses are struggling are many, but, the greatest imposts are government charges , barnacle industries [audits, accreditations], declining retail, increasing rents – etc – so workplace laws and conditions designed for big businesses [mental health leave, maternity leave, long service leave, carers leave, unfair dismissal regulations etc ] all burden small business who are not big enough to have in house lawyers , HR department, management accountants etc. The Epidemic that is raging through the business economy are these structural problems so to keep afloat the nimble businesses do cut corners and wage theft is the corollary of turnover theft. – as illustrated above.
Workplace laws are designed for all business. People who want to run marginal business propositions, propped up by wages theft or lax worker safety should be in prison.
Welcome to Capitalism, Des.
Ssshhh, he’s having the typical neolib wet dream, a crust of stale bread & a pannikin of drain water then back oop chimiley.
To whom are the small businesses paying these “increasing rents”? Unlikely to be other small businesses.
More likely Barnyard’s mate in Armidale where the APVMA found such marvelous office space & appurtenances.
….. but, if you meddle in wage theft, employers will have less to donate …..?
Perhaps if the market paid farmers what their produce was worth (after production costs and an acceptable profit – not rip them off “for customers’ sake” when only a fraction of that “sake” goes to customers) they wouldn’t have to “garnish” workers wages.
Perhaps if you’re so poorly paid you need to rip off your workers to survive it’s time to get out of farming?
And then we can import cheap food from Overseas?? Primary producers are being ripped off by colluding supermarkets on a race to the bottom and supported by governments that rabbit on about those rising costs of living and how families are under such enormous pressure they can’t afford to pay decent prices for decent food! From my observations many people can’t budget and buy crap food at supermarkets and expensive food at train and service stations and then whinge that they can’t afford to eat properly or pay their power bills! MASSIVE generalistion when some people are indeed doing it tough but many in this lucky country aren’t very smart with their spending choices but it shouldn’t be producers OR workers that get ripped off because of that.
The Drumpfster, pissing on one of his main script bullet points, told a bunch of rednecks mid 2018, “we (!?!) need migrants to pick the crops” and they actually cheered.
No cog-dis there then, as during the run-up to Obamacare the Teabaggers organised rallies where the deluded were holding up signs saying “Hands off My Medicaid”.
The removal of Sunday loading for the avocado latte provender set was proclaimed as necessary to ensure said provenders’ viability.
Pay the rate, factor it into your price and if you can’t make a (big) enough profit, consider some other activity, like picking oakum.
Customers of the supamarts showed their willingness to pay more than a dollar per litre of milk but not a zac made it back to the farmers.