The Fair Work Ombudsman has ordered a poultry farm in Newcastle to pay $20,000 in back-pay to sc417 workers but says that it is powerless to deal with many of the other abuses of the company. Perhaps DIBP and the Federal Police will be among the relevant authorities that will investigate these abuses. And chances are, DIBP may be faced with the issue of unregistered practice lurking in this complex chain which seem to involve several layers of subcontracting in order to bring young workers from Taiwan and Hong Kong to the poultry farms.

The Fair Work Ombudsman issued a statement saying that it is concerned about the sub-contracting arrangements it identified during the course of its investigations which it believes contributed to poor record-keeping practices and underpayment of minimum entitlements.

The ombudsman, “found connections between companies in the contracting line beneath the principal sub-contractor whereby they shared the same accountant, interchanged directors, listed individuals as signatories on bank accounts and transferred supervisors from one company to another as labour hire contracts were signed.”

The ABC reports that the Newcastle branch of the Australasian Meat Workers Union identified the labour hire company as Pham Poultry, which is providing employees for the Baiada plant, near Newcastle.

Craig Bildstein, from Fair Work, says his officers are sometimes quite shocked by the poor safety standards people are working in.

"I'm talking about health and safety issues, fire hazards, sanitation," he said.

Among the abuse, the Fair Work inspectors found that:

• Female workers were paid $11.50 an hour to wrap, label and pack trays of meat, while males received $12.50 an hour.
• Those staff using the mincer were paid $13.50 an hour.
• Payments were made in cash, with neither tax nor superannuation deducted.
• Workers were advised by text message of their shifts for the following day.
• Shifts varied from 8 to 16 hours, but sometimes lasted up to 20 hours.

Fair Work inspectors were also told that workers were directed by their supervisor to live in crowded share houses with up to 30 employees, with sometimes two or more people sharing a single mattress.