I am a volunteer for Filipino community organisation here in Townsville. I just want to let you know that this is happening here in our area especially in one of the companies that (457visa) contract workers are working in. Workers under 457 visa (contract workers) were harassed and bullied by their big boss down to the foreman (australians) of Townsville Engineering Industries Pty Ltd. Those ranking staffs cannot accept the fact that these people are from ethnic group (Filipinos) and they have their own practice and culture. The foreman keeps insulting them in front of people calling them names, telling them what not to do and what to do especially when it comes to their private matters (regarding what to do and need to do inside the toilet - the foreman and the big boss will order them to do australian way). Which these people never practice since they were born, because of how they were brought up in their own country. And if they don't follow they will be terminated. And then it happened, worker A was terminated because of that incident. Worker A went to the union, and the union just exploited and everything went out of control. But the company later realised that if they will terminate him they will lost the case, meaning the company will pay more. So the big boss and the manager decided to reinstate worker A, but after a week the company terminated almost all of the Filipino workers including worker A and will take effect on 6 March 2009. But right now while these workers are waiting for that date, they are still working in the company. Some of the contract workers worked for almost 3 years, but the company will not pay any remuneration instead while they are working until the effectivity date, the company asked these workers to work only 3 or 4 days. Meaning they cut down the hours of work which is breach of contract. To complete the 38hrs regular work, the company charged the 2 or 1 day to their annual leave without paying the additional leave loading which is 17.5% of the gross pay. To add to the injury, those workers were harassed and bullied calling them "lazy f***", putting tinner on their 'wet ones' ('wet ones' is used to wipe their behind instead of washing - because they are not allowed to wash their behind after toilet and that was ordered by their australian foreman and the big boss), a worker's grinder was broken by the foreman and so on and so forth...
I can understand if the recession is about economic drop, but harassing and bullying these workers is not acceptable. And these workers don't have anyone to run to or to ask for help. I am concern about these workers and worried on what might happen to them. thanking you so much.