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TRANSCRIPT
When Sameer, which is not his real name, first arrived in Australia on a working holiday visa, it was during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.
After a few months struggling to find consistent work, he chanced on a job at take-away pizza chain.
He says he was hired as a contractor through an ABN.
"We were never issued either a payslip or any sort of invoice or receipt. There was no paperwork. There was absolutely no clarity or transparency on, um, uh, like how much you're getting paid, what are you getting paid."
He says he was paid a flat rate of $21 an hour, regardless of shift time.
"No superannuation throughout the 19 months of employment. No weekend penalty rates, no evening rates because we, we always start work from 5:00PM, and on weekends we were working up to 3:00 AM in the morning. So, there was no consideration of the evening rates or late nights rates."
He eventually left the business and sought out legal advice, and with the support of Redfern Legal Centre, he says he's now calculated he's owed more than $50,000 in stolen wages.
Christina, which is also not her real name, arrived in Australia from Spain on a student visa last year.
She found work as a beautician and was also employed as a contract worker through an ABN.
"So, they didn't give me a contract, so they, the boss, the manager told me about the ABN, about to work with ABN, uh, because they don't have to pay taxes. So, I'm the person who has to pay the, the taxes if I'm working with ABN. But she, she told me that, I will receive, I would receive more money, so it's better for me."
Her payments were inconsistent- often weeks, sometimes more than a month late.
She says she was in a state of constant insecurity, as she was never given a work schedule, and could be called in at any moment without notice.
"So, uh, she used to tell me, "I will call you if you, if we have customers for you." Um, so every day I was, I waking up, uh, thinking about, "Mm, should I go to work today or not? Um, I don't know if I will have customers today or not." So, it was really, really stressful for me."
Advocates say the experiences Christina and Sameer describe are a part of a long-running pattern of exploitation impacting migrant workers across the country.
Australia’s largest survey of migrant working conditions, published by the Migrant Justice Initiative, has uncovered stark details of widespread, systematic underpayment.
The study, conducted in 2024, gathered responses from nearly 10,000 migrant workers across the country, including international students, sponsored workers, graduates, backpackers and other temporary visa holders.
The data, released for the first time this week, shows international students alone are being underpaid $3.18 billion in wages every year, and a quarter of all migrant workers surveyed were underpaid by at least $10 per hour.
Co-executive director of the Migrant Justice Institute, and associate professor at the UNSW Faculty of Law and Justice Bassina Farbenblum is one of the report's lead authors.
"We found that two in three migrant employees were paid less than the hourly wage they were owed under Australian law. We also found that three quarters were hired in insecure arrangements, either on an ABN or as casual workers."
Ms Farbenblum says the survey reveals not only widespread issues of underpayment and insecure employment, but also how employers are concealing workplace exploitation.
She says the data shows the more the migrant worker is underpaid, the more likely it is that they experience other violations, such as not receiving payslips or receiving misleading payslips, being paid in cash, having deductions taken from their wages, or not being paid super.
"And it's all of that other non-compliance that then allows the employer to, to conceal the underpayment. So, you don't have payslips showing what you were paid or the correct hours that you worked, um, paid in cash. You're a casual worker, so there isn't necessarily a record of when you're working or how you're working, and it then becomes really hard for the migrant worker to, to prove, um, the hours they worked and what they were actually paid."
The study suggests misuse of ABNs has become a core strategy for paying migrants off the books and concealing non-compliance.
More than a third of migrant workers in the survey were engaged on an ABN, which is more than four times the rate in the general Australian workforce.
The report authors say in most cases, these workers were likely misclassified employees who were engaged on an ABN to avoid the minimum wage, superannuation and the oversight of the Fair Work Ombudsman.
"We actually found that among those ABN workers and casual employees, 40 per cent were not even paid the minimum wage, and that's twice the rate of people who are hired as permanent employees. So, it's very clear, um, that it makes people really vulnerable and that we have a lot of employers taking advantage of migrant workers by putting them in these insecure arrangements."
CEO of Migrant Workers Centre Matt Kunkel says the strategic use of ABNs to exploit migrant workers by incorrectly employing them as contractors is not a new issue, but it's becoming more prevalent.
"Employers are increasingly using sham contracting arrangements to confuse workers and avoid paying them the entitlements that they're owed as employees. The ABN or sham contracting issue has, uh, been an issue for a really long time, but, uh, it is on the increase as, as witnessed in this, in this report."
He says systematic underpayment is not isolated to any one industry.
"There was a kind of spate of stories a few years back about hospitality and, and horticulture or agriculture. Those industries remain sectors of the economy where wage theft and other exploitation is rife. But the work or the workers that we come across in our work at the Migrant Workers Centre are from all sectors, blue collar, white collar, um, skilled jobs on skilled visas, uh, and folks working in entry-level jobs a- across a range of different sectors."
Mr Kunkel says many migrants face what he calls a double precarity, where they have both insecure jobs and insecure residency, and the fear of losing their visa remains a key barrier for reporting their employers.
Sameer says for him, when he first started working in Australia, this insecurity meant his choices were extremely limited.
"If we would not have the, um, flexibility of getting any sort of Centrelink payments or any, any sort of support, so the only thing we could do to survive, was to work. And because there were no jobs, much jobs going on, uh, and at least I had something. Even though I was being underpaid, at least I was being paid."
In 2024, the Albanese government made amendments to the Fair Work Act 2009 and the Migration Act 1958 to tackle migrant worker exploitation.
The changes introduced new protections against visa cancellations for migrants exploited at work and established new penalties and criminal offences for employers who exploit workers.
A new visa category, the Workplace Justice Visa, was also introduced, enabling temporary migrants who have experienced workplace exploitation to remain in Australia, work, and pursue legal action against employers.
Ms Farbenblum says these changes are important, but protections need to be strengthened further to ensure migrant workers can safely speak up, including when it comes to sham contracting.
"The government needs to actively address sham contracting, that putting of migrant workers on ABNs when they shouldn't be, um, make it easier for migrant workers to be able to show they've been sham contracted and that they're actually entitled to minimum wages as an employee."
Mr Kunkel says improving education and advice for newly arrived migrants is also essential.
"The other issue at play here is that workers can't enforce rights they don't know they have. So targeted early arrival information and education programs are, are vital if we want to ensure that everyone understands their rights and how to enforce them."
Sameer says for him, this support would have had huge impacts.
"We don't know the difference between what being an employee and being a contractor. Between TFN and ABNs. Um, so, I think more, more education, um, for, for a new migrant landing here, uh, in the sense of, you know, um, this is, this is... Because when you're gonna start work, that's your working rights are, and if you're being exploited, you can reach out to us, without having to worry about your visa status or your, you know, your background, which country you come from. That, that kind of things, you know, I think would have, would have made a massive difference.
