Ned K.
Workers and their unions in industries including cleaning, construction,
information technology and communications are fighting super exploitation of
workers through sham contracting arrangements.
Sham contracting occurs when workers
are paid as a franchisee or sub-contractor but receive take home income less
than even the minimum safety net award under the Fair Work Act. It is common to
find workers caught in these situations having net take home pay of a little as
$8 to $10 per hour.
Take cleaning as an example. A worker
on a temporary working visa needs to have a job for a continuous period of at
least two years to stay in Australia and progress towards being accepted as a
permanent resident. Their skills from their country of origin are not
recognised, so they apply for jobs like cleaning to survive.
On application for the job they are
told that they need an ABN and that this will be an asset to them with the
Immigration Department, as they will be able to show they have their own
business!
They are paid on a monthly basis an
amount equivalent to say $20 to $25 per hour. This seems pretty good. However
they soon find out that they have to cover themselves for workers compensation
insurance, cleaning materials and equipment and they have no annual leave, no
sick pay, no insurance and no superannuation. They are only paid the equivalent
of three or four hours a night, but the actual job regularly takes five to six
hours.
As they are a so-called sub-contractor,
the principle contractor does not reimburse them for the extra hours. They are
‘free’ to work as long as they like!
If they are a franchisee, the
situation is worse. They also have to pay back to the franchise holder up to
25% of the money they are paid each month in the form of a franchise fee. The
holder of the franchise justifies this payment from the franchisee by saying
that this enables the franchise holder to pay for the cost of bidding for other
contracts for the future ‘prosperity’ of all!
Recently in the cleaning industry
there was a case of two Indian cleaners receiving a take home pay of $6 per
hour for cleaning a series of bank branches in a capital city.
The situation is even becoming an embarrassment
for the Labor Government whose Fair Work Ombudsman recently announced it was
going to audit 1,000 cleaning companies.
More workers caught in these
situations are getting organised to oppose this super exploitation. This is a
good development for the workers’ movement in Australia.
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