BY SAM WAINWRIGHT
SYDNEY — Before being forced to leave Australia, a group of six Korean building workers have won back-pay totalling nearly $100,000 owed to them by a sub-contractor installing paving for Burwood Council in Sydney's inner-west.
Burwood Council hired Sam the Paving Man to pave the footpaths on Burwood Road. This operator then sub-contracted the work to Choong Sik Jung who trades as both J&J Ceramics and MSK Holdings.
The workers, all casuals, had been employed by Jung for nearly two years working on a range of jobs. When they began work they had short-term visas but Jung promised them work visas. The visas never came, but the boss continued to employ them illegally while not paying the tax, workers compensation levies or superannuation required.
With poor English language skills, and deemed "illegals" by the Department for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs (DIMA) the workers had few options. The boss was quite happy to engineer a situation in which his workers would be deported with no way to claim the wages owed to them.
Sub-contacting creates a paper trail that makes it difficult for workers to nail down where their money has gone, while the various business owners duck for cover claiming that it is not their responsibility. As Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU) organiser Phil Davey explained, when an "entity" is established its assets sometimes constitute "nothing more than a mobile phone and a hotel room".
On December 7 members of the CFMEU and the Korean Migrant Resource Centre picketed the Burwood Council chambers, demanding that the council take responsibility for the situation. However, the council washed its hands of the problem, arguing that because Sam the Paving Man's papers were in order, it was not to blame.
Davey rejected this approach. "There was a clear failure by Burwood Council to scratch even a millimetre below the surface", he said. "They need to clean up their act and make sure they know about the working conditions on all council jobs."
The workers were granted special two week visas by DIMA and the CFMEU negotiated the payment owed to them in a settlement that they voted to accept.
The CFMEU would like to make it known that the illegal workers in this story were employed by a subcontractor, Choong Sik Jung, and not by Sam the Paving Man.
Sam no longer uses this subcontractor, and has put systems in place to guarantee none of his workers, or those of the subcontractors he employs, are illegally working.
According to the CFMEU, "This issue of small companies exploiting illegal workers is ongoing, and is still widespread in the industry, which is why the CFMEU continues to place a great emphasis on identifying and stopping companies who engage in this practice."
From Green Left Weekly, January 23, 2002.
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