Nearly impossible' to earn a decent wage at big supplier to Coles and Woolworths
Date
October 3, 2015
Jessica Zaccaria, a fruit picker from Italy, has experienced low pay in Australia.
Jessica Zaccaria says it is "nearly impossible" to earn a decent wage picking berries at Costa, a huge supplier to Australia's biggest supermarkets.
In five weeks of picking raspberries in Corindi, north of Coffs Harbour, the Italian backpacker's wage averaged just $14.19 an hour, her payslips show.
Ms Zaccaria was paid "piece rate", which means the more you pick the more you earn. Sometimes she worked 11 days in a row doing tough physical work while some supervisors treated workers poorly.
It comes after a Fairfax Media investigation, published on Thursday, highlighted that exploitation of temporary foreign workers across the Australian economy was now systemic, with many jobs fetching just $10 to $13 an hour, well below the minimum wage.
The comprehensive study of 1071 job advertisements in Mandarin aimed at temporary foreign workers, showed 80 per cent pay below either the minimum wage or award, suggesting many hundreds of thousands of people are being illegally underpaid at any one time, and that some industries now rely heavily on underpaid foreign workers.
Ms Zaccaria, who had a 417 "working holiday" visa, gave evidence on Thursday in the Fair Work Commission as part of an ongoing legal case by the National Union of Workers that a workplace agreement between Costa and its workers leaves them worse off than the award – the basic wages and conditions safety net.
Earlier this year Costa's berry business - marketed under the brand Driscoll's - had been forced to withdraw the workplace agreement after it was challenged by the NUW.
The battle at Costa – the family company of prominent businessman and ex-Geelong Football Club president Frank Costa – is part of a bigger push by the union to organise the food supply chain of supermarkets Coles and Woolworths.
Many of the workers at Costa in Corindi are foreign, Ms Zaccaria says. Her co-workers came from around the world including India, the Philippines and Taiwan.
But a Costa human resources executive, Carl Phillips, rejected the NUW's claim that the deal with workers left those earning piece rates worse off.
He told the Fair Work Commission that an average, competent worker would be able to earn 15 per cent more than those on hourly wages – which is the legal minimum requirement under the award for piece work.
Ms Zaccaria said the work was hard and taxing since she started there in June. Although she was not the best picker it was hard to earn a decent wage.
"The work is difficult and physically demanding," her witness statement said.
"To reach the speed of which work would need to be performed in order to earn a decent wage seemed impossible."
Each day Costa adjusts the piece rate and Ms Zaccaria said her income varied greatly depending on the daily rate set by her employer and weather conditions.
As a backpacker, Ms Zaccaria could manage financially, but that's not the case for all her colleagues.
"Other people who have family, other people who have dependants, it's a struggle."
Ms Zaccaria moved to Australia in late 2014 from London, where she had worked as barista. She found working conditions at Costa tough with little time for breaks.
"From the very first day, there were a series of events ... where I or other workers were being threatened by the supervisor," her statement alleged.
There is little certainty around work either, with pickers finding out about shifts often with less than two hours' notice.
Checking a Facebook page each morning, blueberry pickers at Costa Berry's find out from 5am onwards if they have work and when they need to start.
Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/national/investigations/nearly-impossible-to-earn-a-decent-wage-at-big-supplier-to-coles-and-woolworths-20151002-gjznri.html#ixzz3nRdCKpm7
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