Image 1: Working in the Rain. International students’ working condition reveals. Credit Jon Him Tam, copyright permission gained.
“There’s a lot of people who want to do that job, if you don’t want to do this job at this rate, someone else would take your position” says Jon Him Tam, an international student currently studying film in the University of Sydney, experience wage theft in his part time job working as filmmaker.
The new Wage theft Law Explained
The new Wage Theft law in Australia took effect on 1 Janurary 2025. Individual employers or companies that intentionally underpay their employees will be criminalized. Individual employer will face imprisonment up to 10 years, or a fine up to $1565,000 Australian dollars .
“That’s not just a civil matter. This means employees who deliberately underpay their staff now face imprisonment and significant crimes, the new legislation introduced by Fair Work Legislation amendment closing with polls”says Raylene Bliss , a former journalist and editor at Inner West Courier, who now works as a Faculty Lecturer at University of Sydney. “That’s [the new law] something I support,” Bliss adds.
As revealed in the inforgraphic above, wage theft affects all workers in Australia, but it disproportionately impacts migrant workers. Migrant Workers Center’s 2021 survey discloses that 65% of their survey respondents experienced wage theft, and they are all temporary visa holders, including international students who work on a student visa. The International Students And Wage Theft in Australia report surveyed over 5000 working international students, and finds that 77% were paid less than minimum casual wage.
While the new law poses stricter regulations, does it protect the rights of the people who need it the most? Not necessarily.
Migrant workers are less likely to report work exploitation because of the fear of visa cancellation, especially when they are on employer-sponsored visas. 20% of the workers on employer-sponsored visas feared to report their employers according to Unions NSW. International students who work under student visa face similar situation. Ameilia Yarwood, who works at the Univeristy of Sydney’s Career Center offering work advices to students, shares that, “Visa stautus would be one of the main reasons why they don’t report wage theft.”
“I don’t want to make any trouble,” says Esther Zhao, an international student in Sydney, who was underpaid in her first year of working on a student visa. “I have friends who experienced wage theft. One of them worked in a restraurant and didn’t get paid at all for the trail week. So it’s really like free labor. A lot of my friends had their pay delayed for months.” Similarly, Oswen Zhao, another international student in University of Sydney shares that he was only paid 4 Australian dollars per day when he was a trainee. When asked about why they didn’t report, Miss Esther says, “many international students are afraid to speak up, they are worried it might affect their visa or they are losing their job.”
Therefore, even the new law could intimitate the employers, it does not really empower migrant workers in general to take further actions because it may affect their stay in Australia.
Visa also limits migrant workers career options. Take international students for example, their
visa restrict them to work up to 48 hours every fortnight, but no restrictions on holiday. This suggests that they are more likely to work in part time rather than full time because otherwise they will breach their visa requirements. “Some jobs doesn’t want international students because they think we have these limitations so I feel like I miss out some job opportunity just because of the visa status. I always had to be really careful not to go over the limits” Miss Esther says.
Against this backdrop, Gig work is the norm for the working international students. “We can’t find a stable job. That’s [visa restrictions] why a lot of people turned us down” Mr. Jon says. He adds that although he knows the intention of limiting how long international students could work is to have students focus on their study, but this limitation put working international students at a greater risk for work exploitation. Being gig workers also means less protection, “most part time job don’t have a union” says Miss Ameilia. Some employers may even take advantages of student’s visa, they offer “under the table job” according to Mr. Oswen. They pay international students in cash, so they look lawful on business record. Therefore, visa restrictions are more likely to expose interntaional students to works that are insecure.
Image 2: Cashier Desk Informs Card Surcharge –Does encouragement of using cash transcations in stores linked to wage theft? Credit: Ziqi Zhang
Empowering Workers Might be More Effective Than Punishing Employers
So how can we really empower migrant workers, especially international students to take actions when they face wage theft? “More education” says Miss Ameilia. There should be more education in different languages to support workers to understand their rights.
Miss Esther proposed workshops to be held in student’s orientation week that contains information on how international students could work in Australia. Providing the students with key resources in multiple languages to help them to recognize their rights and offer guidance of how to protect their rights in the workplace. Miss Raylene calls for the university to act: “more suppot on the ground here at the universities, where students can go even anounymously and seek support.”
On a bigger level, visa system reform is probably the most effective way to empower workers to protect their own rights. In other words, if migrant workers face work exploitation at work, their visa should not be compromised. It is only when migrant workers are less constrained by their visa, will they gain the autonomy to defend themselves in the face of workplace exploitation
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