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melbourne\aise\ – “a report New South Wales Leagues They analyzed 7,000 vacancies in New South Wales and found that 60% of them are on offer Wages below the minimum wage. The survey examined ten sectors among those in which many employees work migrant workersArticle by Francesca Valdinosi And the Magic Fossati posted on portal Italian SBSa private broadcasting service that broadcasts news in Italian across Australia.
When in 2015 Luis Amoresano He arrived in Sydney, and his first impression of the Australian world of work was positive: the salaries were much higher than those to which he was accustomed in Italy, but, as they say, all that glitters is not gold. “I noticed right away that they were always offering you less than you were entitled to, and maybe ‘cash on hand’ as well to get around the restrictions that some visas have,” he told SBS Italian on the microphone.
After several attempts to find acceptable working conditions in the restaurant world, Luigi ends up working for a food delivery company in search of more flexible working conditions that will allow him to support himself while studying for his master’s degree in law. “At first everything went well, but after six months they began to remove shifts, and to change wages by unilaterally reducing them.”
Luigi has now completed his studies and works at theAustralian Manufacturing Trade Unions, the union representing workers in the manufacturing sector. His condition, along with the experiences of more than 1,000 foreign workers, was examined in a recent study by Unions NSW.
The union, which represents workers in more than 60 industries in the state, analyzed 7,000 job vacancies in its report, 60 percent of which were found to offer wages below minimum wage.
The problem as he explains to us Renata Mussolino affiliate Victorian Trades CouncilThe Victorian equivalent of the New South Wales Federations, is not unique to New South Wales. “At Trades Hall we find the same thing, many people come asking for help,” Mussolino explains, “sometimes discovering that they have been paid thousands and thousands of dollars less.”
The NSW Federations report looked at ten sectors that employ many migrant workers. Retail was found to be the sector with the highest number of fraudulent job offers with over 84% of ads in foreign languages ​​at wages below the statutory minimum, followed by the cleaning, transportation, construction, catering and beauty (hairdressers and beauticians) sector.
As Renata Mussolino explains, the Melbourne Migrant Workers Center offers free support to migrant workers in Australia. Matt KunkelThe CEO of the center explained to us what the migrant worker risks if he denounces his employer and why the phenomenon of illegality is widespread among foreign workers.
“One of the problems with our immigration system is that many migrant workers are closely associated with their employer, which means that their employer has a lot of control over their ability to stay in the country and progress toward permanent residence,” he explains. “What happens is that workers are at risk if they talk to the authorities about underpaying, wage theft or other workplace abuse.”
According to Kunkel, the report presented by NSW Federations shows that the road to creating an equal and fair working environment for all male and female workers in Australia is long and goes hand in hand with reforming the rules governing foreign worker visas. .
Another organization that provides free legal advice to workers in Victoria is JobWatch.
Gabriel MarchettiAttorney JobWatch in Melbourne Vice President Coming to Victoria and Tasmania, stresses that it is important for people who live and work, even temporarily, in Australia to know their rights, first of all by checking the minimum wage for the sector in which they work, but not only. “There is no reason why newcomers should not join a trade union,” he explains, “It’s a good idea to think about it from the start, and you don’t have to have permanent residence (PR) or citizenship to do so.”
According to the report’s data, the job advertisements with the highest number of violations are posted in Chinese, followed by Japanese, Spanish and Portuguese.
The report was presented in the presence of Immigration Minister Andrew Giles, who said: “At the moment our visa system shifts the consequences of illegality onto individual workers. We need to solve this problem by focusing on exploitative employers, so that exploitative workers do not risk their visas.”
Currently, there is a consultation being held by the Fair Work Commission where representatives of communities and trade unions are invited to submit contributions for a review of the system.
Employment legislation has recently changed making it illegal to post jobs for less than the minimum wage or with terms and conditions that do not meet Australian standards.
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