Bosses who deliberately underpay their staff could soon face jail time as part of a series of hard line reforms designed to protect Australia's most vulnerable workers.
The Migrant Workers' Taskforce has handed 22 reform recommendations to the federal government on March 7, all of which have now been accepted.
Criminal convictions, jail sentences, and million-dollar fines.
These are just a few of the 22 suggested labour exploitation reforms handed to the federal government by the Migrant Workers' Taskforce.
And each and every one of them has been accepted.
International students and backpackers make up about 650,000 to 700,00 workers in Australia, and Migrant Workers' Taskforce chair Allan Fels says a “very large” proportion of them are being seriously underpaid.
“We've recommended that there be bigger sanctions in monetary terms - about a million instead of much more modest amounts now. In cases of serious misbehaviour actual jail sentences for the employer, and then we'd like to see the Fair Work Act and the role of the Fair Work Ombudsman, which is enforcative (sic), made stronger, smarter, better by giving them some additional powers - how to act when there's systematic underpayment going on across the board,” Mr Fels says.
Professor Fels says underpayment is just the beginning, with many migrant workers being forced to work double shifts without extra pay, to make payments in return for visa sponsorship, and to live in unacceptable conditions while paying a very high price for the privilege.
He says he hopes the recommendations will send a strong message to employers across the country - worker exploitation will not be accepted.
"The message is that you're at risk, whereas at the moment they don't feel at risk because it's unlikely they'll be caught, but if they're caught they at the moment face minor fines, which they would regard as kind of just a cost of doing business, nothing to worry about. Jail sentences would make them worry, as would the much higher penalties that have been agreed to - about a million ((dollars)) per offence,” Prof. Fels says.
That would mark a substantial increase in infringement penalties, with fines currently ranging from $3780 to $378,000 depending on the severity of the offence and the size of the business.
Doctor Joanna Howe is an Adelaide-based labour and migration law expert.
While she acknowledges the 22 recommendations are a good start, Doctor Howe says the report does not get to the heart of the issue.
“The reality is we have a temporary migrant worker system in Australia that is broken in that there is a huge amount of labour being done on back door visas. So they've come to Australia for a purpose other than work. The visa is for a holiday, so that's the backpacker visa, or it's to study, which is the international student visa, and that is the central purpose of the visa. And they are given work rights, but it's a back door entry into the labour market in that it's a secondary purpose. And with those back door visas comes a lot less regulation,” Dr Howe says.
And while she congratulates the taskforce's report for being the first to take a whole-of-government approach to the issue, Doctor Howe says an overhaul of the entire temporary migrant worker system is needed to truly end exploitation.
“The primary cause of vulnerability for a temporary migrant worker is the fact that they're temporary. If we really want to address the power imbalance that occurs in the workplace, we would offer less temporary migrant worker visas, and identify areas in the economy where there are genuine labour needs, and we would start to introduce permanent visas. So for example, in horticulture where, because of its geography, the seasonality of the work, the physically arduous nature of that work, we know that there are regional towns around Australia - I've visited them - that are crying out for migrant workers. We don't have a permanent visa solution for those areas,” Dr Howe said.
The Migrant Workers Taskforce was established in October 2016 after media reports exposed the widespread and systematic exploitation of migrant workers around the country by chains including 7-Eleven convenience stores and Dominos pizza restaurants.
But the president of the Council of International Students Australia Bijay Sapkota says the big chains aren't the only culprits.
“We conducted a survey last year. There were lots of cases where same-culture exploitation has been a prominent issue. For example, students coming from China being exploited by Chinese employers or students coming from Nepal being exploited by Nepalese employers. That looks quite common in the majority of the cultures,” Mr Sapkota says.
Mr Sapkota says he welcomes the recommendation that international students should be allowed to report workplace issues to their universities rather than the Ombudsman, who is linked to the government, to ease their anxieties over getting their visas cancelled.
“One of the major reasons why international students get exploited and do not report is the fear about their visa and also sometimes they're quite afraid that if they do report that workplace exploitation then they'll lose their job, and we all know that it's quite hard for international students to get a job in Australia.”
Now that the 22 recommendations have been accepted in principle by Jobs and Industrial Relations Minister Kelly O'Dwyer, the government says it will get to work on implementing the reforms.
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