What's worse than not having a job? Try working in slave-like conditions.
Uncovering the lie that unemployed Australians are “too lazy to pick fruit” exposes the use and abuse of temporary migrant workers.
In this first of a two-part show, we hear eye-opening stories from Kate, Sherry and Tex. Kate has been picking fruit and vegetables for about three years now. Kate trained as a computer engineer in her native Taiwan. With a background in sociology, Sherry Huang came to Australia as a backpacker, and now works at the Migrant Workers' Centre. We also return to a conversation Kevin had back in December 2020, with his mate and gun-picker, Tex Stone.
Reports and rumours going back to the early 2000s consistently warn that the vast majority of horticultural workers earn less than the minimum casual rate, some as little as $3 per hour. This is so widespread some commentators describe wage theft as a business model.
CONTENT WARNING: Mention of sexual harassment between 32:30-35:00
88 Days A Slave - documentary project
Towards a durable future: tackling labour challenges in the Australian horticulture industry by Joanna Howe, Stephen Clibborn, Alexander Reilly, Diane van den Broek & Chris F Wright
https://www.sydney.edu.au/content/dam/corporate/documents/business-schoo...
Credits
Theme music:
One in Ten by UB40
Music:
Hall of the Mountain King by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Source: http://incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/index.html?isrc=USUAN1200072
Artist: http://incompetech.com/
Gavotte En Roundeau 4th Lute Suite
Exzel Music Publishing (freemusicpublicdomain.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
orangefreesounds.com
Sound effects permitted for non-commercial use under license
“Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)”
