Originally published in The Advertiser, September 30, 2020.
Anyone who’s spent much time at the Central Market has seen those feet-high pyramids of potatoes. For a time, those towers were my handiwork.
I was never the best fruiter: it’s probably why I was bumped to the hard graft of the potato aisle. The dirt, from unwashed kipflers and dutch cremes, stained my hands for weeks after my last shift.
Working as a grocer is always fast paced. But sometimes, the bedlam would be interrupted by serious-looking inspectors, complete with uniforms and licenses, who’d demand access to the shop.
They weren’t SAPOL, but agents from National Measurement Institute, a Federal Government body there to inspect the scales.
Traveling Australia’s butchers, fruiterers and supermarkets, the NMI checks if scales are accurately calibrated to protect customers from being ripped off.
In 2018/19, the Morrison Government conducted 3246 proactive audits of businesses scales nationwide - its biggest effort in years.
But in another area of Federal investigative responsibility - making sure workers are paid fairly - the Prime Minister’s team are asleep at the wheel.
In that same year, the Fair Work Ombudsman - the body charged with ensuring workers are paid their due - conducted 2859 random inspections nationally. They recovered around $40 million in unpaid wages.
It’s a drop in the ocean. Before COVID-19, it was estimated that up to $6 billion per year was being lost in wage theft, and $270-500 million in SA alone.
An alarming expose recently uncovered brazen underpayment targeting international students in Adelaide.
Caught on candid video, one employer admitted to intentionally underpaying his staff. Tragically, some workers reported being paid as little as $6 per hour.
The findings came two years after a rare Fair Work audit of Adelaide city businesses found 29 per cent underpaying staff.
I don’t care what your politics is - this is simply unacceptable. But we’re doing next to nothing about it as astate, and currently, underpaying a worker isn't a criminal offense in SA.
SA may have few COVID cases - but we have a long road back to full economic health.
As we consider the shape of our recovery, we should strive to build on the best of our pre-COVID economy, while rejecting the unfairness and insecurity of the past.
Ending wage theft should be a part of our economic reconstruction.
Because it doesn’t just hurt workers directly - it also undercuts every hardworking SA business who pay their staff properly and care about their teams. Competitive disadvantage is the last thing we need as we try to bring confidence back to an ailing economy.
For years, state government’s have passed the buck on wage theft to the Feds.
But right now, Canberra is doing more to inspect South Australian fruit-shop scales than it is to ensure SAworkers get paid fairly. If we want underpayment to stop in SA, we’re on our own.
It’s time to follow Victoria’s lead and make intentional underpayment a crime in SA.
Ed Cavanough is Director of Policy, and South Australia Lead, at the McKell Institute.