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Cowboys on the North-West gas fieldsDate: 05 September 2008
A global energy industry corporation, using a slight of hand trick, has improved their enormous bottom line, by paying skilled guest workers, on the North-West Gas Shelf off Western Australia, between S4 and $10 an hour. Teenage McDonald's worker paid more than skilled gas field workerThe company, McDermott International, a billion dollar profit earner, is paying skilled workers less than, or just about the same, as an Australian 16 year old working at a McDonalds outlet could expect, Australian Workers' Union National Secretary, Paul Howes, said today.It is unfortunate that this Texas oil giant was able to avoid Australian pay rates because the Department of Immigration allowed them to use 456 Visas - even though the Ombudsman's legal advice shows the Department should have insisted on 457 Visas. Bureaucrats toe anti-worker Howard political line" The Workplace Ombudsman has today fingered bureaucrats in the Department of Immigration who, during the Federal election campaign last November, were toeing their political masters' line and telling McDermotts International how to avoid paying Australian rates." They told the Houston based giant how to get around the Howard Government's controversial 457 Visa scheme," Paul Howes, Australian Workers' Union National Secretary, said today. Local worker would have got $40 an hour, not $4 an hour" Australian workers doing the same job would have received more than $40 an hour, plus entitlements, not the $4 to $10 an hour received by these workers from Indonesia, Malaysia, India and the Philippines." Our information at the time was that officers of the Department of Immigration and Citizenship (DIAC) had actually provided advice to McDermott about a legal loophole to avoid Australian pay rates - telling them they could use the less well known 456 Visas, which do not insist on Australian minimum conditions. Fig-leaf covered unethical workplace pay"McDermott it seems was able to keep out of the reach of Australian law by ensuring these workers were not employed by an Australian company but by their associated labour-hire companies in Malaysia, Singapore and Texas. "Paul Howes said that what is most disturbing is that according to the Workplace Ombudsman report we have received the Department of Immigration now seems to acknowledge they were wrong - but at this stage has no plans to act to rectify the problem. " In our view the Federal Government should ensure that no bureaucrat ever provides advice to employers on how to avoid workplace decency in Australia; on how to avoid Australian wages and conditions. Cowboy workplace values not wanted" We do not want a Texas oil giant introducing their cowboy workplace culture - it is a workplace culture that Australians rejected in their thousands at the last Federal election." The AWU will be writing to the Minister for Immigration, Senator Chris Evans, to ask, based on the Workplace Ombudsman's report ,what plans the Federal Government now has to ensure these workers are paid properly. " We will ask the Minister if he believes McDermott's International should continue to be allowed to operate off Australian shores using guest workers and importing their cowboy values into the workplace - values which are anathema to Australian voters," Paul Howes said. " The AWU certainly believes that McDermott's should never ever again be given permission to operate in Australia with the use of guest workers."
What the media has had to say about the AWU's stanceWhat the Minister said about the AWU's stanceWhat the Workplace Ombudsman said about the AWU's stanceRead earlier AWU commentary on the treatment of foreign workers on the North-West gas shelf
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