Visas ‘sour dreams’ of mines jobs

GEELONG chippie Joe Mancor can’t understand why he can’t find work in Western Australia’s big mining projects yet 457 visa-holders without trade papers can.
He’s been rejected at sites and by companies and agencies from Port Hedland to Mount Tom Price and Karratha without getting to first base while tradesmen are supposedly in short supply.
“People are telling us it looks like there’s lots of work going on but there’s not. I’m sick of people telling us there’s a boom when there’s people out of work everywhere,’’ Mr Mancor told the Independent from Onslow, Western Australia.
The 32-year-old carpenter said overseas workers on 457 visas, including many Irish and Filipinos, were picking up jobs on low pay rates but faced problems with excessive rentals and costs in mining towns.
“I walked onto a high-rise site in Karratha and asked for a job. When I asked where to leave my resume they said ‘You got a visa?’
“The pay was flat-rate casual for 10 hours days in the heat and sun of $31.20 an hour. A house costs $1500 to rent in Karratha – just a bedroom costs $500.’’
Mr Mancor moved to the west with the ambition of earning enough money to buy a house and set up a family but said the refusal of big mining companies to hire Australian tradesmen had cruelled his dream.
He claimed thousands of qualified Australian workers were losing jobs as construction and mining industries pursued cheap overseas cheap labour.
“A lot of people don’t know what’s going on. I’ve spent nine months in this area and a lot of people just don’t realise the problems.”
Mr Mancor, 32, an experienced carpenter with trade papers, has been unable to find work on large construction sites in WA’s booming north west.
His father, union stalwart Bob Mancor, slammed the Liberal and Labor parties for being “terrified’’ of upsetting mining companies and showing no concern for workers.
“These work visas are just a way of trying to get cheap, compliant labour,” he said.
An ACTU campaign against treatment of 457 migrant workers has described their working conditions as “tantamount to slavery”.
Geelong Trades Hall secretary Tim Gooden said 457 visas were “inherently not much chop”.
“We support skilled migration but on a permanent basis, not under the 457 scheme because that’s where people are most likely to be abused because they’re least likely to speak up.”