Rally Text

Nurses

FAILINGS OF THE FAIR WORK OMBUDSMAN:

WAGE THEFT

Wage theft is rife in construction but we simply don’t have a watchdog which is pulling its weight. The FWO is relying heavily on large corporates self-reporting wage theft despite being the regulator for 13 million Australian workers.

If we want to properly address wage theft we need a tough cop on the beat not a regulator that needs bosses to tell them when workers have been ripped off.

WAGE THEFT FACTS

  • PwC estimated in 2019 construction workers are underpaid $320 million every year
  • The FWO will claim that over the last five financial years they have recovered approximately $873 million in unpaid wages and entitlements but nearly two thirds of that has come from self-reported wage theft from large corporates not through the enforcement actions of the FWO
  • This leaves on average just around $60 million per annum (on average over the last five years) that the FWO collects through direct enforcement action. This is despite the fact that they are the regulator for 13 million Australian workers

Wage theft

Sham contracting

Corporate Insolvencies