Gavin Marshall (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to provide a voice to some of Australia's most vulnerable people. I refer to outworkers within the textile, clothing and footwear industry. The plight of outworkers in the TCF industry comes as a great source of shame to me as a representative of the Australian people. For decades now TCF workers in Australia, often women with poor English skills, have been ruthlessly exploited. I have seen photos of sweatshops that exist in our own country where women are sometimes locked up for whole days in appalling conditions. These women work for as little as $4 or $5 an hour until they become crippled by work-related injuries, and any senators here could have walked past one of these sweatshops and not even known. They are behind garage doors or blank walls in suburban streets and shopping centres. This is really why I have been moved to speak here today, because a lot of the exploitation in this industry flies under the radar.

I should point out that not all TCF manufacturing businesses are guilty of this exploitation. There are good Australian companies that do not deserve to be tarred with the same brush. However, the exploitation that I speak of is so insidious that even well-meaning businesses can be surprised to learn of the appalling workplace conditions that exist within their own supply chains. If the public of Australia had seen what I have seen, they would be outraged. But, as I said earlier, the workers in this industry are some of Australia's most vulnerable. Many of them feel unable to speak out for fear of reprisals. But there are two workers from this industry, Anh and Susan, who showed enormous courage last week and testified before the Education, Employment and Workplace Relations Committee of which I am chair. Speaking as part of the Textiles, Clothing and Footwear Union of Australia delegation, these brave women shared their stories in the hope that women such as themselves would no longer be subjected to blatant exploitation. I was deeply moved by their sincerity and modest hopes for the future, so much so that I wish to repeat some of the testimonies of Anh and Susan in the Senate chamber today for my fellow senators and fellow citizens to hear. This is Anh's testimony:

My husband passed away when my only daughter was four years old. I went to school to study and got an aged care certificate, but I could not find a job. So, because I needed to find money to raise my child, I had to learn sewing and became an outworker. I have been working for one employer for four years, but I have not got any entitlements. My employer pays me about $5 per hour. Whether I can make enough money or not depends on how difficult the job is. Sometimes I have to work day and night but I cannot make enough money because the work is so difficult to do. I virtually have to work 12 hours per day, including weekends. I do not have enough time for my daughter. I do not have enough time for myself. With the little money, not only do I need to spend very carefully on my living expenses but I also need to pay for other working expenses such as power, cotton, machine and other costs when the machinery is broken. My boss normally pays me two or three weeks after the delivery. If the work has any mistakes for any reason, I do not get paid until I have fixed all the orders. The employer wants me to show him my ABN before I can get the job. My life is so difficult. Sometimes I ask the boss for more money but he says he can't pay more. If I ask too much he would stop the work and give it to other people. I do not want to stop working or find another job because of my age. My daughter is in year 10 and I have to keep working to make money to raise her and pay for the rent.

I hope my work is more stable and I can make enough money for my living and have some rights and entitlements so I do not have to worry so much if my boss stops his work or makes me redundant.

I really want to have more time for my family, for myself and I really want to get rid of all the cash-in-hand people so I can have more work. Thank you very much.

Like Anh, Susan has a difficult life, but holds humble hopes that she might one day receive a fair day's pay for a fair day's work, the same as other Australians receive as a matter of course. She says:

In 2006 I discovered that my first son had autism. That was the time I started working from home. At the end of 2006 I gave birth to my second son and he also had the same problem as the first one. The reason I work from home is because I want to look after both of my two sons.

My husband left because he could not put up with his sons. My life is so difficult. Over the years I worked for different labels, different factories. They pay me by piecework. I estimate my pay to be about $4 an hour without any other entitlements. Recently some employers asked me to have an ABN number—to set up a company to have a propriety limited—and employ some other workers in my home. Since they know it is hard for me to get to work, they were able to convince me to get paid in cash, but the cash pay is much lower. I have to work from home but, because of the low pay, I have to work very long hours—between 12 and 15 hours per day without holiday pay or super or other entitlements. On one occasion my employer did not pay me for four months, which they blamed on the fact that the principal company had not paid them. After that, my employer said they would pay me a bit at a time until they caught up. I am working here in Australia where workers have entitlements and rights, but unfortunately I do not have those. I hope that I can get the same rights and entitlements as the workers in the factory.

My fellow senators, outworker exploita­tion in the textiles, clothing and footwear industry is the subject of a current inquiry, and I do not wish to pre-empt the findings of the committee. But I do ask you all to think about the words of Anh and Susan and to draw your own conclusions about whether we, as elected representatives of the Austra­lian people, are doing enough to protect people like Anh and Susan. I think there is little doubt about what the Australian public would make of Anh's and Susan's statements. I commend them once more for their courageous efforts to lift the garage door on sweatshop conditions and improve the life of their fellow workers.

This is not a problem that has just arisen. It is a problem that has been the subject of many, many inquiries of the Senate. Yet we as legislators have failed to act to prevent this exploitation that is happening in this rich country. That is a national disgrace for us. I hope that the proposed legislation that we are inquiring into at the moment will finally give rights for organisations such as the union FairWear and the Fair Work Australia inspectorate to have the power and the ability to end this sort of exploitation and ensure that these workers get at least minimum wages and minimum entitlements, that they are not bullied and held to ransom with the threat of work being taken away from them and that they have some dignity in life.It is a national disgrace. It is time that this parliament took the appropriate steps, moved the appropriate legislation to end this terrible exploitation that creates enormous suffering in our community—suffering that mostly goes unseen.I hope senators, when the legislation comes before us, will think long and hard about what sort of country we want and whether we think it is acceptable that just because these people are hidden from view that they should work in such appalling conditions for such miserable rates of pay and that we bring justice to them.