Recruitment agencies stealing from Australia's poorest workers - legally!

I gave up my last 7 weeks to working on a cattle station. I ended up in the job after calling the Harvest Hotline, a government line which connects people with work, or so I thought. It seems that for fruit picking work the line gives genuine referrals however most of the times I called the line on my search I was given the number of a recruitment agency. I found this to be almost exclusively true when I went to the governments jobsearch agency. In theory there is no problem with companies outsourcing there interviewing/screening process to another company, t can be a difficult task. But all is not as it seems.

In my case I was given a number to call about a job on a pig farm in northern NSW. When I called the number I was told that I was actually speaking to an office in Toowoomba and that they have many jobs going which for me was great because although I was down to my last dollars I didn't particularly want to work on a pig farm. I had an interview in which the recruiter initially attempted to make me feel good about myself, "you're just the kind of person we are looking for" then later tried to make me feel useless "so you haven't actually got any experience in feedlot work or fencing." He went on and on about how he looks after workers finding the right job for the right person and how he should have been a union representative before putting me into the first job that he was able to secure for me.



I knew I was dealing with a "used car salesman" type as I listened to him take a call while I was in the office where he went on and on about how tractor drivers are being overpaid and lamented their desire for a decent working environment. But I only had just enough money for petrol to get to the job he gave me, on a feedlot. Having seen Fast Food Nation and being an advocate of organic food it wasn't really up my ally but it was new challenges that I had set out to find and I was sure that this would be one.

When I arrived most workers who had been there for a while weren't interested in meeting me, I actually had more interesting conversations with some of the cattle. Fortunately there were some other young workers and backpackers who's company I enjoyed. I lived in a demountable structure, a "donga", the second class of accommodation. We were fed mostly beef and overcooked vegetables apart from 1 week when a replacement cook who had some pride in her work came along.

I was paid $16.50 an hour for the first month despite being promised that I would be paid $17.50 after 2 weeks. There were a number of lies and excuses for that. I then went on to $17.50. The company I worked for had to pay $23.50 an hour while I was on $16.50 and more when I eventually went onto $17.50. Those who weren't employed through a recruitment agency working as casuals were payed just under $20/hr. Over the time I was there I payed about $1330 to this agency. Many other workers who did 3-4 month stints would have payed much more. My friends had only met the recruiter for 10 mins before packing 3 of them off on a bus for 3 months work. He would have made $7 an hour on about 2700hrs for that 10 mins work. Not bad work if you can get it! He has at least 50 workers on his books in the small office.

He is now on 2 month holidays while all his workers are paid only for the hours they put in with no benefits despite most working 50-70 hr weeks. If you get injured that is the end of your employment period, casual workers.

I had other friends there tell me about being contracted out on $15/hr when the employer was charging $100 an hour! This is not an isolated case but what happens when governments open loop holes and less and less workers are in unions or organised in any fashion. The place I worked at was ruled with an iron fist. Everybody had stories of disgruntled workers who were sacked for asking questions.

This is the current direction of the western world. Milton Friedman's doctrine of leaving it all to the market; no minimum wage or conditions, privatized everything - schools, health, electricity, water, resources, military forces, aid and emergency response etc. taking away wage controls is a pillar of this reform which results in massive wealth creation for a small few and scraps for the rest to choose which essentials they want to pay for. In Australia we are not too far down this path but it was most certainly Howard's direction and is certainly the direction of the US and all it's client states.

We must be aware of what is being taken away from society. For me it was about $2500 for 7 weeks work, over the whole economy it's a fortune being taken from those that need it most being given to those who don't!

For me it was a few hundred hour given up to be able to get my freedom back and be able to help some people who's causes I believe in. I know I have it better than most of the world workers, because of Australian workers struggles last century.

Lets not all end up in these conditions.