THE Australian Workers’ Union has moved to close the industrial loophole that allows farms to pay vulnerable workers a fraction of the award rate.

The union has applied to the Fair Work Commission to amend the Horticulture Award to guarantee that every worker on every farm is entitled to take home the minimum casual rate of pay – $24.80 per hour.

Currently, farms can dodge this minimum rate through ‘piecework’ arrangements, under which workers are paid depending on the quantity of fruit picked or vegetables harvested. Manipulation of this system has led to widespread incidences of workers getting paid as little as $3 per hour, as revealed most recently in the McKell Institute’s landmark Blue Harvest report.

Under the AWU’s proposed amendment, piecework arrangements would still be permitted, but every worker would be guaranteed the award rate as a floor.

“After a slew of investigations, inquiries and media exposes over a decade, we know for a fact that worker exploitation, worker abuse, and even modern slavery is rife on Australian farms,”  AWU National Secretary Daniel Walton said.

“There is no reason we have to accept this shameful reality. Australia was founded on the principle that if you do a fair day’s work you should be guaranteed a fair day’s pay. There is no reason we should consider farms to be an exception to this rule in 2020.

“As things stand fruit and veg employers don’t even record how many hours people are working. That’s madness. The hours should be logged and people should be paid accordingly.

“The farm employers lobby is fond of claiming that fruit pickers on piecework arrangements make more than the minimum wage. If that’s true then they should have zero problem with supporting our amendment," he said.

“The ethical farmers who employ people on decent rates will face no disadvantage from our amendment. It is only the wage thieves, the scammers, and the shonks who have anything to fear.

“Shearers, station hands, cane cutters, and others on piecework rates already have this protection. We need to extend it to fruit and veg pickers," Mr Walton said.

“The reason farmers are finding it hard to attract workers to fruit picking currently is because people don’t want to be ripped off and exploited. If we are successful in amending the Horticulture Award every person working on an Australian farm will be guaranteed a basic award rate. This will help drive down youth unemployment in our regions which we know is at catastrophic highs currently.

“We expect broad support for this amendment because it also makes economic sense to rural communities. Workers who earn more, spend more in local shops and supermarkets. They pay income tax and GST. They rent houses and build lives in regional areas.”

The call-for-reform is supported by bushfire survivor Natalie Trigwell, who has thrown her support behind the claim after she was paid just $15 a day for backbreaking work on a blueberry plantation.

“I was working six to eight hours a day in the heat and getting a ridiculously low wage that you couldn’t live on,” she said.

“There are decent farmers out there who are doing the right thing but we need to root out the bad guys and make sure every fruit and veg picker is paid a fair wage. Right now there’s no way I’d encourage anyone to take up this work, but if we ended the current piece rates award arrangements that would be a game changer.”

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THE Australian Federation of Travel Agents (AFTA) said the Federal Government’s tailored $128 million support package for travel agents and tour operators, announcede this month, comes at a critical time, especially given the ongoing delays to full resumption of international travel.

Parallel to AFTA’s work on the grants support, given the severity of the COVID impact on Australia’s 4000 travel agents and the 40,000 employed in the sector, AFTA has continued to press the case for additional support including JobKeeper 3.0 for the travel industry. This work will form the basis of AFTA’s pre-Budget submission to be lodged January. 

“Australia’s travel agents and tour operators who have been so devastated by COVID are incredibly grateful for this support and for the government’s responsiveness from Prime Minister Scott Morrison and (previous) Tourism Minister Simon Birmingham down in making this grant possible," AFTA CEO Darren Rudd said.

“Given the numerous constructive, collaborative conversations had to date with government, AFTA hopes this measure is the first of a number of support mechanisms including the tailored evolution of JobKeeper for our sector. As the Prime Minister himself has acknowledged in Question Time recently, travel agents will need ongoing support for some time.

“AFTA looks forward to continuing to work closely with government and government agencies to ensure the implementation detail is right and that those travel agencies, tour operators and tour wholesalers who are unable to access funding through corporate debt raising receive the ongoing support they need to stay in business and continue to support their employees, clients and customers.”

Mr Rudd said eligible businesses can lodge applications now for the one-off grant support via the Services Australia Business Hub. To be eligible, businesses must:

1. be a travel agent or tour arrangement service provider; 
2. be actively incorporated or registered in Australia as at November 30, 2020 with AFTA or other peak bodies; 
3. have business turnover (gross income) of between $50,000 and $20 million for the 2019 calendar year; 
4. have been eligible for a JobKeeper fortnight in October (either September 28 2020 –October 11 2020 or October 12 – October 25). 

 Grants range from $1,500 to $1,000,000 per entity. Applications will be taken for three months. 

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ILLEGAL exploitation of migrants worsened during the COVID-19 pandemic, with the largest ever audit of foreign job ads revealing almost nine-in-10 (88%) offered wage rates below the award minimum.

Wage Theft: The shadow market is the third audit of foreign job ads by Unions NSW and reveals the prevalence of advertising wages below the legal minimum is up from 77 percent in 2017 and 70 percent in 2018.

The 2020 audit analysed 3000 job ads in Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese, Nepalese, Spanish and Portuguese. Of those, 2,189 (72%) indicated a rate of pay, of which 88 percent were below the national legal minimum award rates.

The report also found:

●      Construction was the worst industry for migrant wage theft with 97.3% of jobs advertised below the minimum wage. This was followed by cleaning at 91.8%, hair and beauty at 87.9%, fast food at 87.5%, retail at 87.1%, hospitality at 87%, clerical at 84.3% and transport at 66.7%

●      Advertisements in Vietnamese were most often below the minimum wage at 90.7%. This was followed by 88.3% of Korean ads, 87.9% of Chinese, 86.3% of Nepalese, 83.9% of Portuguese and 76.4% of Spanish ads.

“There are more than one million temporary migrants in Australia who can’t fully enforce their workplace rights due to their visa status,” said Mark Morey, secretary of Unions NSW. “So many migrants were already exploited, and without JobKeeper or JobSeeker it got much worse during the crisis.

“Without income support, tens of thousands of migrants were made more vulnerable. Clearly, some unscrupulous bosses seized on the opportunity of the COVID pandemic to rip off vulnerable migrants even further.

“This is a problem that can be fixed. Australia is among the world’s wealthiest nations yet we have allowed an apartheid to emerge in our workplaces. If you are a permanent resident you have workplace rights, but if you are temporary you are vulnerable to wage theft," Mr Morey said.

“The 20 hour a week restriction on work for international students must be abolished as a matter of urgency. It’s almost as if this rule has been deliberately crafted to push international students into exploitation in a cash economy.

“The Fair Work Ombudman is also a shambles. It doesn’t understand its brief and doesn’t have the resources to stamp out exploitation. Instead, resources should be directed to peak union and business groups to conduct legal wage compliance.

“It should also become a legal requirement to advertise the minimum rate of pay in every job advertisement. This would create a powerful baseline expectation for wages.”

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THE Financial Rights Legal Centre has urged the Australian Government to immediately act to implement the recommendations of the Northern Australia insurance inquiry to ensure Australians have access to affordable insurance and a fair claims outcomes in the aftermath of natural disasters.

The Financial Rights Legal Centre is supporting the recommendations of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s (ACCC) final report on the Northern Australia insurance inquiry including:

• Making it easier to search for, and compare, insurance products;
• The introduction of an effective standard cover regime with standard definitions;
• Requiring that insurers estimate an updated sum insured for their home insurance customers on renewal notices;
• Requiring insurers to warn customers when they appear to be underinsured;
• Banning conflicted commission payments to insurance brokers;
• Help for customers experiencing premium payment difficulties;
• The abolition of stamp duty on home and contents insurance products or the redirection of revenue towards measures to improve affordability for low income consumers or to fund mitigation works; and
• A call for governments to provide direct subsidies to people to relieve acute affordability and cost of living pressures facing people in high risk areas.

Financial Rights Legal Centre director of Casework Alexandra Kelly said Financial Rights assisted more than 120 Australians who were affected by the Black Summer bushfires in 2019-20.

“Many of these people have suffered severe financial hardship and unfair insurance outcomes after losing their homes and livelihoods,” Ms Kelly said.

“We continue to receive calls from people confronting bushfire insurance disputes. People like the residents of Conjola who are struggling to rebuild even a year on from NSW bushfires.”

Financial Rights has also assisted more than 375 Australians affected by other natural disasters like storms, hail events, flooding and drought in the past 12 months.

Ms Kelly said many people confronted similar problems including exposure to significant losses above and beyond their level of insurance.

“This leads to ongoing insurance claims disputes over whether an excess should be paid, the scope of works and cash settlement offers, underinsurance borne of an incorrect sum insured for their property and temporary accommodation,” Ms Kelly said.

The ACCC’s report follows several royal commissions and inquiries concerning natural disasters, the recommendations of which have not been implemented or only in part.

Ms Kelly said the Australian Government must act quickly to implement the ACCC’s recommendations.

“The Australian Government must intervene to ensure that insurance for Australians at risk of experiencing bushfires or other natural hazards is affordable,” Ms Kelly said.

“We support the ACCC’s conclusion that direct subsidies have the greatest potential to work in a targeted way to relieve some of the acute affordability and cost of living pressures facing consumers in higher risk areas.”

About Financial Rights

The Financial Rights Legal Centre is a community legal centre that specialises in helping consumers understand and enforce their financial rights with consumer financial products and services, especially low income and otherwise marginalised or vulnerable consumers.It provides free and independent financial counselling, legal advice and representation to individuals through the following channels: 

• Financial Rights Legal Centre - https://financialrights.org.au/;
• Insurance Law Service 1300 663 464 – a national service focusing on problems with insurance or debts to insurers;
• Mob Strong Debt Help 1800 808 488 – a national service for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander callers https://financialrights.org.au/mob-strong-debt-help/;
• Credit and Debt Legal advice line 1800 844 949 for those needing legal advice in NSW;
• National Debt Helpline 1800 007 007 – for people needing to talk to a financial counsellor (this line is answered by a number of different services around Australia, Financial Rights is one of those services).

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