BY DAKOTA TAIT
A new report's found, seafarers working on foreign freight ships in the Port of Newcastle are being underpaid around $25 million every year.
The Australia Institute's Robbed at Sea study explored the past ten years of data from the International Transport Workers' Federation Australian Inspectorate, finding 70 percent of foreign-registered ships didn't meet the minimum wage standards.
Across the country, the report estimated $65 million in underpayment, some seafarers being paid as little as $2 an hour.
Maritime Union of Australia Newcastle Branch Secretary Glen Williams says it's appalling.
"I think Australia should be outraged," he said. "It's not right."
"If any of our families or our kids or ourselves went to work and we didn't get paid by our employers, there's remedies for us to be able to fix that, and if there wasn't, there would be outrage in the community."
"It shouldn't be any different for these people. They don't have a voice. They've got nobody to speak for them. It's up to us to do that."
Around 2500 foreign-registered freight ships visit Newcastle every year and are critical to the country's supply chains.
But according to Mr Williams only a small number of those ships are inspected, and the issue's been "out of sight" and "out of mind".
"There's no oversight for these people," he said. "There's nobody keeping an eye on them."
"The ones that we've found that have been underpaid or not paid at all, they're the ones that have contacted us. It's the ones that don't contact us, I suppose, that will be the real concern around how much of this is actually going on."
The report recommends closing legal loopholes which allow foreign ships to ignore local labour laws, as well as better resourcing for inspection authorities and the ombudsman.
The union's also supporting calls for stricter rules to protect vulnerable seafarers at risk of exploitation at work.
"I think we need to resource an inspectorate through the Australian Maritime Safety Authority," Mr Williams said. "We need to provide people to make sure that we can get down on every ship and make sure these people are alright."
"We don't mind using them to export our coal and other products and imports. We import so much product into this country but we don't mind using these people to do that, so we should make sure that they're at least being paid properly."
"We've highlighted over the years the number of abuses of these foreign seafarers. They're stood over. They're murdered - we've had three murders in this port on ships coming in and out of the port."
"It happens. People disappear off these ships. They're replaceable, and nobody really cares about them."
 |
| Image credit: Port of Newcastle. |
