Not all Australians are shocked by the news that 5,700 Woolworths staff were underpaid $300 million. There were other examples of wage theft by the restaurants of celebrity chefs George Calombaris and Neil Perry, as well as big oufits like Bunnings, 7-Eleven, Subway, Michael Hill Jewellers, Wesfarmers and even the ABC.
People are still searching for cases of mass over payment by corporations. Strangely none exist.
There was even confected outrage from the ( Liberal ) Federal Attorney -General Porter threating jail for perpetrators.
Lots of excuses were given for this theft. Some were ludicrous.
Calombaris “the creativity is flying, the ideas are flying, the dreaming is there. Um, but the sophistication in the back-end wasn’t there.”
Some thought that the high rate of casualisation in these industries was the cause. Certainly, the bargaining power of young inexperienced workers against large organisations is completely in favour of the corporations. Unfortunately, the sum of $300 million is chicken feed when compared to the hundreds of billions of dollars of profits extracted from Australian workers over the past decades.
These examples are only the tip of the ice berg of the schemes of exploitation that have been imposed on the Australian people following a global blueprint. Working people in the USA, UK, Europe and the developing world, similarly, have been ripped -off.
Billionaire corporations aided by international law and consulting firms with commentators and ideologues paid by neo-con think-tanks have mobilised to cut wages and conditions so that labour is dis-organised and fractured.
This has been achieved by legislation to hamstring trade unions to make it extremely difficult to organise workers and by outlawing strike actions. This has led to fining unions millions and threatening trade union members and officials (in some countries murdering them).
Here in Australia, wage bargaining has been choked by repressive legislation instigated by Federal and State governments. The Liberal, the National parties and their predecessors have always sought to destroy trade unions or any form of workers’ organisation.
Without strong trade union action, small-change clowns like Calombaris can “forget about the backend” and go on collecting millions. Coles and Woolworths are amongst the biggest companies in Australia. They are conglomerates that own other companies that dominate the retail sector. So what chances have trade unions in their dealing with these two monsters when governments have their back.
Multinationals like Dominos, 7-Eleven and Subway have a very aggressive model of profit extraction. They are franchises run to on a strict regime with licence fees and contracts with head office to extract the maximum profit. Similar to modern day serfdom when you are tied by an onerous contract to a (multinational) master corporation. 7-Eleven had wide scale pay scams like initial unpaid training week, giving workers half or less than the award rates and unpaid overtime.
These businesses employ foreign students and temporary visa holders and threaten them with reporting to authorities if they complained. This is the normal working model for these companies with many franchisees going to the wall. Head office takes 57% of profits while the franchisee must pay wages and other costs. The burden is passed down to the worker doing 18-hour shifts often for as little as $5 per hour. As one franchisee said you wouldn’t be able to make a profit unless you were paying these types of wages.
In agriculture, the drive for lower costs (lower wages) has seen an acceleration of the use of labour-hire using vulnerable overseas workers. Fruit pickers and packers, for example, face wage theft, poor living conditions, threats of violence and sexual violence or threats of loss of visa as the norm. Drivers and workers at chicken abattoirs also have faced extreme exploitation by hard nosed corporations.
Everyone working in Australia has hard won rights. Exploitation of these workers has a knock-on effect to push down wages and conditions in other areas.
Recent ABS figures in November 2019, reveal Australia has about 13 % of people wanting work (either- underemployed or unemployed). People want to work without the precarious contract- to- contract chase or the endless casual gigs without sick-pay or holidays. Previously active and muscular trade unions would monitor conditions and trade union members would take action to protect and improve wages and conditions within the system.
But industrial legislation that ties up workers and union busting schemes run by employer groups supported by large consulting firms like, Ernst & Young, KPMG , McKinsey and PwC, which give strategic advice on management, deregulation and taxation have gone in hard against the people of Australia. People with backgrounds in these companies, infest the halls of power and reward those in public life, with plum retirement “jobs”.
The people of Australia are held in the vice like grip of the multi-national corporations, who have pared back working conditions and wages to new low global standards. These corporations have practised their tactics in other countries and are aided here by government legislation and the forces of the state (courts tribunals and police).
They have achieved massive boosts to profits directly from wage cuts and cuts to working conditions. Ironically these corporations are always screaming for release from “red-tape “ and regulation to be able to trade freely yet they like to tie up their workers with regulation and the threat of fines and jail.
Companies that have done the right thing are rare and exceptional as everyone races to the bottom. The Australian people produce great wealth for these companies. They have contributed to an enormous growth in productivity over the last 30 years, but instead of improving wages and conditions or reducing the working day for workers and working people, conditions have worsened.
This torrent of wealth has been sucked out the country , with only cursory regulation. The beneficiaries are primarily US companies by a long mile, then those of the UK, the EU and Japan. The decisions made in Wall St, London , Frankfurt and Tokyo have impacts around the world.
The US maintains its dominance ahead of the minor imperialists with a massive military and an aggressive interventionist ideology. Invasions, drone attacks, “interventions”or coups are integral to their armory along with KFC , Facebook , Netflix and General Electric.
In pursuit of world- wide profits, US imperialism demands subservience to its ideas and methods.
America does not have permanent friends or enemies, only interests. (Henry Kissinger- former White House advisor & war criminal)
There are no solutions coming from the talking houses of Canberra, the states or territories. Big corporations and medium enterprises have a choice, look after the Australian people or get out of the way.
Staunch resolve, good politics and organisation by workers and working people in Australia will end exploitation by big corporations and lead the way to a true commonwealth in Australia.
