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Immigration Daily News Your fruit, vegetable and poultry dishes won't taste the same after you read this
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Your fruit, vegetable and poultry dishes won't taste the same after you read this
The department of immigration says that the exploitation of foreign workers in Australia is hard to uncover. ABCs hidden cameras however had no trouble revealing some of the shocking practices. There are now calls for the introduction of a low-skill work visa to allow for greater transparency and monitoring of foreign workers in the agriculture industry.
A Four Corners investigation this week has revealed that food being picked, packed and processed by exploited workers is being sold to consumers nationwide. The programme alleges that supermarkets and fast food outlets are involved naming Woolworths, Coles, Aldi, IGA, Costco, KFC, Red Rooster and Subway as retailers receiving produce from such suppliers.
Baiada, Australia’s largest poultry supplier came under the spotlight in the programme with allegations that it has deliberately engaged labour contractors in order to avoid direct responsibility for the exploitation. Baiada has previously been caught out by the Fairwork Ombudsman for underpaying workers, according to the programme.
The report says that workers are forced to work a relentless pace, criticized and abused endlessly, not allowed to drink water or even go to the toilet for hours on end. They live in cramped quarters and are paid well below the minimum wage with the contractors skimming off on their wages. There are claims that underpayment is estimated in some cases at about AU$30,000 per individual per year.
“All of the major suppliers are using dodgy labour hire contracting arrangements that fundamentally exploit the workers who pick and pack the vegetables,” alleged George Robertson of the National Union of Workers, Victoria.
Industry insiders and federal politicians are calling for urgent reforms to Australia's fresh food supply chain before it is too late. There are calls at a federal level for the supermarkets to stop shirking responsibility by passing accountability back to the suppliers and farmers. There have been calls to introduce a low-skill work visa in order allow for more transparency and monitoring by the authorities.
"We will be known as a country that exploits vulnerable people who are looking for a better chance at life," warned Labour law academic Dr Joanna Howe, a senior lecturer with the University of Adelaide Law who called for urgent reform.
"We would never accept this if it were Australian workers being treated in this way, but because it's 417 visa holders and we don't know them, there's a lid on it, we accept that it's OK" said Dr Howe.
Assistant Minister for Immigration, Senator Michaelia Cash issued a media statement indicating that the majority of employers are doing the right thing and the Four Corners programme’s allegations while concerning are exceptions.
“Both the Department of Immigration and Border Protection and the FWO are active in ongoing compliance campaigns to ensure that 417 visa holders are being paid in accordance with Australian pay and conditions” said Senator Cash.
Comments
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Wednesday, 06 May 2015The highly successful US model is to be tough at the border but to allow open slather to employers once the illegal immigrants are in the country.
Undocumented migrants are not "free-labour" in that they do not have civil or industrial rights, live in fear of deportation, and are readily and enthusiastically exploited by American industry. Illegal migration to the US holds up whole swathes of the American economy.
But curiously the undocumented children of undocumented immigrants are given access to free public education and benefits up to year 12.
The overall policy gives something to the vigilante style anti-immigrant groups and the law and order crowd while keeping open the pipeline of exploitable non-free labour to American employers.
Marvellous strategy and highly successful, although to be fair the minimum hourly wage in the US is roughly the same as the daily minimum wage in Mexico, and the land border between the two countries is very long.
Of course Senator Cash cannot see the exploitation in Australia because she does not want to. The CFMEU has been criticised by her colleagues and to an extent our industry for years for having the temerity to talk about the issue.
The migration strategy of the Liberal Party is not too different from the Republicans in the USA, except in the Australian case being tough at the border means spending billions of dollars on monstering asylum seekers while they flood the country with exploitable labour.
My view is that in most cases 457 workers do not have exceptional skills and do not create employment but take jobs from and suppress wages for Australians. The other temporary work visas have the same effect.
Let’s rejoice then that the Department is called Immigration and Border Protection so at least we know our frontier is safe while our wages and working conditions are forced down. -
Wednesday, 06 May 2015
Do not be so quick to say I told you so.
Ask your wife/husband this .... would he or she be prepared to pay double or even triple the price for their groceries from, say, their local supermarket?
While claiming a high moral ground is good, look at how our neighbours dealt with the same matter. Would you be equally happy if our primary productions gone broke as not even our supermarket want to purchase from them because of the high costs of production.
Not a problem easy to solve, mate. -
Thursday, 07 May 2015
I would pay more for fair trade and ethically / cleanly produced food.
Industry seems to forget that the first freedom of business is to go broke. I have no special sympathy for a business or an industry sector that runs to government demanding labour concessions or bail outs or government guarantees or that NZ apples should be kept out or that this or that union be smashed. If you can't pay a living wage go broke as far as I am concerned. Either love the market or leave it (preferably without whinging) and stop running to government to drive the labour market downwards!
No-one will care if my small business goes broke, except as a migration agent, maybe the DIBP would be pleased!
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I realise that I said this before and was told that I was naïve, but I think that the situation would be vastly improved if we used the California model and required all the legal cross border workers to belong to the state approved union. For our non-legal workers, a different solution would need to be found. But whether one is a legal worker or an "illegal" worker, no one should refused worker protection.