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Immigration Daily News Over 80% of foreign workers in casual jobs are underpaid in Australia
Over 80% of foreign workers in casual jobs are underpaid in Australia
Over 80 per cent of foreign language advertisements are openly offering wages well below award rates with many of these jobs blatantly advertised as "black jobs", a Fairfax Media investigation in conjunction with Monash University has revealed.
The study of 1071 job advertisements aimed at temporary foreign workers, largely from China, Malaysia, Hong Kong and Taiwan, show the vast majority offer work either below the minimum wage or the award. Most of the jobs appeared temporary or casual and did not include penalties and loadings.
The study analysed websites like http://www.backpackers.com.tw/ , yeeyi.com and some foreign language Facebook pages.
“…hundreds of thousands of workers across the economy, in food courts, cafes, factories, building sites, farms, hairdressers and retail [are] being exploited on low wages and believing they have no power to ask for their rights,” noted the report published in the Sydney Morning Herald.
The study found that it was common for jobs to be openly advertised at $10 to $13 an hour, significantly below Australia's legal minimum wage of $17.29 an hour. It also noted that many job ads did not reveal pay rates and could very well be even lower – as low as $4 an hour.
Such low rates have been linked to labour hire middlemen who often take a cut from three sources: the workers themselves, employers who hire the workers, and from owners of cheap hotels who house them.
The National Union of Workers (NUW) has called for urgent action on the labour hire middle-men at the centre of many of the employment scams.
"If you sell alcohol in Victoria you need a licence, if you want to trade people you need nothing," said Tim Kennedy, the union's national secretary.
"Labour hire is completely unregulated, all you need is a phone and a spreadsheet to be a labour hire provider."
Immigration blog
I strongly agree the information you provide in this blog, foreign workers always being underpaid in Australia especially doing casual jobs, I believe that is true. Also, that is a common problem and it becomes more and more serious, just like you said the 80% of migrant worker can not receive the minimum wage in casual jobs. I’m a university student and I found that there are lots of real cases around me. A number of international students choose to do casual work in spare times, and almost of them can not receive the minimum wages which they should receive. That is really unfair. I think this problem should be improved and solved in order to keep the fair workplace. We can’t ignore it! Therefore, I’m conducting a campaign (Get Your Fair Wages) about this problem. I have provided lots of information about this issue, and I have also published some blogs that tell the underpaid foreign workers how to do, such as how to report this problem. For employers, I explained the harmful of exploitation of overseas workers, and I also provide the way of how to fix the underpayment with their workers. I think we pay close attention to the same issue, and I think we can work together to help more foreign workers. If you are interested in my campaign, you can move to my social media platforms and have a look. I really appreciate it.
Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/getyourfairwages/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/GetFairWages
Wordpress: https://getyourfairwages.wordpress.com/