‘Paltry wages’ in poultry industry

Dodgy labour-hire practices were exploiting workers in the local chicken processing industry, a Geelong hearing of a Labour Hire Industry and Insecure Work Inquiry heard this week.
A labour hire agency had got away with thousands of dollars in unpaid wages to workers in the Geelong poultry industry, members of the National Union of Workers (NUW) told the hearing.
NUW witnesses said labour hire firm Tula Opportunity engaged to provide workers to Turi Foods, also known as Golden Farms, a local poultry processing facility, from 2014 to 2015.
“The company’s sole director also ran a number of other small labour hire companies that supplied workers to other poultry processing facilities around Australia,” the witness said.
“Tula Opportunity provided approximately 80 workers to Turi Foods. During the second half of 2014 a number of workers joined NUW.
“These workers advised NUW that Tula Opportunity was paying people between $14 and $17 per hour. The minimum rate of pay for a poultry processing worker at the time was $21.79 per hour.
“Workers were also not receiving other entitlements such as overtime payments, shift loadings, penalty rates or superannuation contributions.
“NUW made a number of unsuccessful attempts to address the underpayments with Tula Opportunity. Following these attempts, NUW made four applications to the Federal Circuit Court in January 2015 to recover the underpayments totalling over $20,000.
“The first two applications were heard and granted in July 2015. The Federal Circuit Court ordered that two NUW members be paid $7839.43 and $1748.65 respectively.
“Following the orders being served on Tula Opportunity, the company was voluntarily wound up and placed into external administration. Neither of the workers received the money they were owed.
“Tula Opportunity had no assets and very little capital and its director was able to grossly underpay employees and walk away with no consequences.
“(This) highlights clearly the need for regulation in the labour hire industry to protect workers from unscrupulous labour hire agencies and contractors.”
The Independent was unable to obtain comment from Turi Foods before going to press.