Fair Work Ombudsman Exposes Baiada Group for Poor Worker Treatment

Fair Work Ombudsman Natalie James is calling on Baiada Group, Australia’s largest poultry provider, to declare publicly it has ‘an ethical, moral and social’ responsibility to clean up the employment practices at its various worksites. The Fair Work Ombudsman had recently released a damning report on the Baiada Group confirming exploitation of migrant workers at some of its processing sites.

Background

Amidst allegations and complaints from workers who said they were being underpaid, forced to work extremely long hours and required to pay excessive rent for employee accommodations, Fair Work launched an investigation into the poultry producer in November 2013. Similar complaints were levelled against the company by the Australian Meat Industry Employees’ Union and local community groups. Originally, Baiada argued that the allegations were inconsistent with the company’s prior checks and audits on its contract labour providers. The company vouched that it is committed to the fair and equitable treatment of all workers in accordance with all State and Federal legislation.

However, the Fair Work investigation and report has since backed up a great number of these claims. Fair Work’s investigation concluded that there was a labour pool made up of predominately overseas workers on 417 working visas being exploited.

Fair Work Report

The Fair Work report exposed the fact that employees at a number of sites were not being paid their lawfully entitled wages and that ‘hundreds of thousands of dollars’ could not be accounted for in a complicated supply chain which included a number of contracting firms that have since closed down.

Fair Work also found a number of non-compliance issues with Federal employment laws and the existence of supply chain governance arrangements that were either very poor or non-existent. James expressed her concerns over these matters:

The report found that the employment supply chain included a number of contractors and sub-contractors but that this complex system did not include written agreements. Fair Work inspectors concluded much of the work done at the three processing plants was completed “off the books” and the amount of money allegedly paid to contracting companies did not match the number of workers they provided.

Fair Work Recommendation

Fair Work made a number of recommendations to Baiada including:

• Commissioning an independent, external specialist to review its labour-recruitment practices;
• Introduce policies and protocols with the aim of improving its governance arrangement;
• Implement an electronic time-keeping system to properly record employee start and finishing times;
• Ensure its sub-contractors are able to properly identity all workers;
• Set up a formal complaint and dispute resolution process; and
• Prepare induction materials for workers.

Baiada has responded by expressing its deep concerns over the report detailing the poor treatment of workers by Baiada Group. A statement from the company says:

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Fair Work uncovers “exploitation” and paltry workplace practices at Australia’s largest chicken producer Baiada Group

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