Shifting the focus?
Labour Traps Revealed: Exploitation of working holiday makers in Australia
Believing that it would be easier to get a job in China Town as they share the common language, he tried to look for a job of waiter after he arrived Adelaide in Southern Australia. Helix Ha Hei-lok was with her wife doing his working holiday in 2014. He was taken aback by the offer of AUD$8 per hour (about $58) for working as a waiter.
The minimum wage for waiters at that time was about AUD$16 per hour. Receiving just half of the minimum wage was not uncommon for working holiday makers, especially when they were working for Asian employers.
Working holiday in Australia is in the largest scale with the highest number of participants and partner economies in the world. Scandals of various kinds of labour traps worsen people’s impressions on working holiday and worry about the labour protections for participants. Is working holiday shifting from cultural exchange to provision of risk-taking low-cost labour to the country?
The scale of working holiday in Australia has expanded exponentially and constantly. The annual number of visas granted has increased from about 40,000 in 1995-96 to over 200,000 since 2011-12. Thirty-eight economies have partnership with Australia up to 2015.
For most of the agreements, Australia does not set any annual quota limits for the number of incomers. The visa granting rate has hit as high as 99 per cent, according to the Visa Programme Report of Australian Government.
Mr Ha had been offered quite a few times of underpayment work during his two-year stay. “It was hard for Asians to find a legal job since a lot of backpackers were looking for jobs,” he said.
As a member of the Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions, he knew about the risks of accepting to work as a “black labourer” well. But he faced a dilemma between doing an underpaid job and not working at all looking at the savings dropping everyday worrying about money for his stay.
Eventually, he accepted the AUD$8 per hour offer of a Cantonese restaurant. “I only received $6 for the first week as the employer claimed that it was a week of probation. I asked for a pay rise to $8 in the second week, but I ended up receiving $7. I was angry that I left the job this time.”
He did not chase for the salary afterwards as he thought his acceptance of the offer of $8 verbally meant giving up the legal rights.
Mr Ha later joined the National Union of Workers, the official labour union in Australia, hoping to have his labour rights protected and help other victims of labour traps. He was not alone in facing the exploitation. He helped more than a dozen working holiday makers to get back the deserved amount of salaries during his stay.
“Generally Asian employers were more exploitative but they were afraid of taking the case to the court due to a huge sum of compensation,” he said. “So as long as the employees have the address of the employer and go to the FairWork Department, the legal wage can be obtained.”
He was put to the situation of fake self-employment when working for a housekeeping company afterwards. Fake self-employment is another common trap that employers do not need to provide insurance or legal protections as the staff is “not employed by the company” under agreement. Employers lift the potential burden of being sued in case of any conflicts between the company and the employees.
He chose to be self-employed afterwards as he could earn more.
He later worked for some farms and factories to fulfill the requirements for getting an extended second year visa. Participants have to work in specific fields of agriculture, fishery, mining and construction in regional areas for 88 days.
He was offered underpaid work again. “The competitive labour market clears the employers’ worry about finding sufficient labourers,” he said.
The influx of these temporary workers has filled significant vacancies in low-skilled and seasonal jobs that many of the Australians do not want to do.
According to the study of Growcom and Horticulture Australia Limited, working holiday makers “consistently make up about 50 to 85 per cent of the seasonal workforce” in horticulture.
This limitation drives a lot of the backpackers to find jobs in farms. Also, they can not work for the same employer for more than six months. Their duration of stay and difficulty in finding a long-term job actually set the “standard mode” of working holiday for many.
This also brings the myth of working holiday equates with working at a farm.
“Fruit or vegetable picker” and “waiter” were the major occupations of working holiday makers in Australia, revealed by the Australian Survey Research Group (Melbourne) in 2008.
Despite the negative impression towards these “low-skilled” jobs, a lot of the working holiday makers do not mind to work in these industries.
However, whether the objective of doing a working holiday shifted the focus from cultural exchange to low-cost labour has raised international concerns.
Four Corners has produced a documentary in 2015 showing the exploitative lives of working holiday makers in Australia, including underpaid work, unreasonably long working hours, degrading living conditions and sexual harassment. These black markets were found in farms and factories in Australia and raised outrages internationally.
The Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions listed the eight most common traps for working holiday makers. Among which are illegal employment, false self-employment, unpaid probationary period, underemployment, underpayment, delayed payments, overcharging of agency fees, and payment of wages by installment.
This year, Mr Ha also takes part in the protest on Labour Day fighting for equal labour rights for outgoing working holiday makers in Australia.
Hong Kong established partnership agreement with Australia in 2001. In response to the risks posing to the working holiday makers, Rebecca Wong for Commissioner for Labour of Labour Department reminds the participants to get well prepared before departure and stay alert during their travels for safety reasons.
Helix Ha Hei-lok shares his experiences and tips to avoid being traped in Australia as a returnee of working holiday.
These include taking out appropriate insurance policies, observing local laws and being cautious in dealing with the terms and conditions laid down in employment contracts in the working holiday destination.
Dr Joanna Howe, a senior lecturer at the University of Adelaide Law School and an expert in temporary labour, believed that the exploitation on low-skilled workers in Australia could only be curbed if an official working visa is issued to them instead of the “backdoor” working holiday visa or the student visa that many foreigners take the loophole
and work in the country instead of studying seriously.
After coming back to Hong Kong, Mr Ha holds working holiday sharing seminars with other returnees, hoping to remind the prospective participants to stay alert for the potential labour traps. His passion for serving for the labourers’ rights intensified after seeing different kinds of labour traps in Australia.
Unique Product of Experience designed
What do you think about Australians? This is the common questions encountered by many returnees of working holiday. With the original objective to boost the cultural exchange between Australians and holiday makers from other partner economies, participants are expected to have experience the life of ordinary Australians.
However, this may not be an easy question to answer for many of the returnees. A lot of the working holiday makers choose to live in share houses and hostels with other backpackers during their stay instead of locals. Many of the participants have their first overseas experience with foreigners from different countries but the locals are the hardest to develop close relationships with.
“I spent a lot of time with backpackers, among which Taiwaneses were the most common people I met and made friends with,” Mr Ha said.
Cultural exchange with Australians was not as extensive as expected, as a lot of the guest houses and hostels located near the farms or factories that they worked were usually located in rural area with limited access to densely populated towns where more locals lived in.
At night, Mr Ha usually spent time making great meals with other backpackers as some of them worked for bread factories, some were in vegetable farms, some were in meat factories that they brought different food back and cook together. This way of living is common for a lot of the working holiday makers as usually the shops and restaurants near their living place closed as early as 5pm everyday.
“Cultural exchange between backpackers and Australian very much depends on how one spends his or her time,” he said.
For those working in farms or factories and living far away from the locals, it would be hard for them to have a lot of contact with the locals as they may get tired after work and the inconvenience of transport also makes them not easy to meet more locals.
When more of the people focusing on “work” more than “holiday”, how much they know about the locals’ way of life is in doubt. Their lifestyle there is mainly the product specifically created for working holiday makers that many of the locals do not share.
Working in a farm in Australia as other working holiday makers did was also the original experience of Mich Wong, another participant from Hong Kong. She tried to find other extraordinary jobs after working for a few weeks.
She started working in a ticket office of a snowboarding site of Australia, moving away from the life of farms with other backpackers.
“It was the first time of my life to be around with all Australians. All the other staff were natives. I also lived near the site with other Australians. That was really like living locally,” she said.
There were not many overseas tourists at the snowboarding site and a lot of the things that locals talked about were down-to-earth like the matches happened a few days ago and the Australian politicians.
The site where she worked was like a leisure place for locals to hang out when they wanted to take a break. As a foreigner living in a place surrounded by all Australians, she found herself a bit hard to understand their accented English and the topics they discussed. But she tried to make friends with them and got to know more about the locals.
She tried to make friends with her housemates and workers, getting to follow the local lifestyle. She hanged out with Australians going to the markets for food, going for short-term trips at the weekends as the locals did.
“I would say to others I did ‘live’ in Australia for that period of time. Since what I did was no difference from the locals there. It was not like a working holiday with backpackers all the time.” She said.
Ms Wong learnt snowboarding from a beginner to intermediate learner through her stay there as she enjoyed free lessons and exemption of entrance fee. At first, she was learning without friends. After the first season, she snowboarded with other Australians and it was fun.
“Australians were more chill. They were more friendly comparing to Hongkongers. They live up to present and do not have a lot of plans for the future like we do,” she said.
It is a common phenomenon for backpackers to stick together as they share more common experiences and feelings in a host country. They can support each other when dealing with home sick as well. Working holiday would be a unique experience for many, but how much time they spend with locals vary. It depends on both the participants’ attitude and the job they are working for.
Prospective participants are interested to know more about the risks and experiences of returnees.