Fernanda* was one of around 80 international students underpaid by a cleaning company that went into liquidation and set up under a new name a short time later.
It is a practice known as phoenixing, where companies go into liquidation to avoid paying debts, such as entitlements owed to staff.
"I felt exploited and depressed and started going to a psychologist because they make me so feel useless," Fernanda said.
A recent Senate inquiry found migrant workers like Fernanda were particularly vulnerable to underpayment and exploitation and most did not seek help.
As employment groups call for the next federal government to ramp up migration to plug widespread labour shortages, a national coalition of organisations is calling for better protections for those workers to prevent wage theft.
Along with the Uniting Church and Ethnic Communities' Council of Victoria, the co-signatories have written to the major parties asking them to act on three key reforms recommended by two recent Senate committees to protect migrant workers from exploitation:
- Visa protections for migrant workers that report exploitation or wage theft to the Fair Work Ombudsman, and claims made through the courts
- An affordable and accessible dispute resolution mechanism for workers to recover unpaid wages and entitlements
- Extend the Fair Entitlements Guarantee (FEG) to all employees, including those on temporary visas
At Fernanda's workplace, the majority of her colleagues decided not to take legal action or lodge an underpayment claim against their former employer.
"Almost the whole workforce was international students and many were concerned about taking any action because of the possible risk to their visas," Sharmilla Bargon, coordinator at Employment Rights Legal Service, said.
Ms Bargon said whistleblower-type protections would encourage more migrant workers to recover underpayments.
"The exploitation of migrant workers is widespread," she observed.
Ms Bargon said the reforms would also act as a deterrent to unscrupulous employers who use deportation as a threat.
"We see employers threatening to report workers to the Department of Immigration with trumped-up visa breaches," Ms Bargon said.
"This works: migrant workers are scared to lose their visas and be made to leave Australia."
A survey of 5,000 migrant workers commissioned by the Migrant Justice Initiative in 2019 found three-quarters of participants had been paid less than the minimum wage.
In a separate study of around 2,200 migrant workers who acknowledged underpayment, only one-in-10 took action to recover money owed.
Only 3 per cent had contacted the Fair Work Ombudsman and more than half recovered none of their unpaid wages.
Fernanda was repaid $20,000 by the company's administrators after getting help from the Employment Rights Legal Service, but Ms Bargon said other temporary visa holders she has worked with have not been so fortunate because there was often no cash left to pay employees.
Ms Bargon said extending the Fair Entitlements Guarantee (FEG) would protect those who could not recover money through a company administrator.
The FEG is a federal government scheme that can cover certain unpaid employment entitlements to eligible employees who lose their jobs due to the liquidation or bankruptcy of their employers.
"These migrant workers are paying tax but temporary visa holders are not eligible for the program," Ms Bargon said.
Economists and small businesses back protections
Economists and business groups expect migration to be critical to addressing labour shortages.
Jarrod Bell, chief economist at the Committee for Economic Development of Australia (CEDA), said the next federal government would need to address the issue of stronger protections for migrants.
"This is probably a debate that we need to have, in the wake of COVID," he said.
"Obviously, we saw with such a significant proportion of temporary migrants in the economy, over COVID, those people did not have the same access to supports that permanent migrants and residents had.
"We need to look at where these demands are and how we meet them, and how we make sure that we don't see exploitation."
Alexi Boyd, chief executive of the Council of Small Business Organisations Australia (COSBOA), has also backed strengthening protections for migrant workers.
"We are fully in support of anything that protects more businesses' ability to compete with others, and part of that is making sure that everything is fair and equitable," she said.
International student Ali*, who was underpaid around $80,000 while working as a casual security guard in Sydney, agrees.
“The government should take action on these types of people who are just ripping the international migrants and they are just saying that if you do like this one, we will just cancel your job,” he said.
Ali was regularly required to work three consecutive 10-hour shifts with only an hour off between.
He was fired when he questioned his employer over pay.
When he made a complaint to the Fair Work Ombudsman, his former boss came to his house and told him to stop legal action or they would get him deported back to Pakistan.
“Strong laws should be there and there should be proper checks and balances,” he said.
The major parties did not respond to the ABC's request for comment.
*Names of case studies have been changed for legal reasons
