2022 Refugees and Asylum Seekers as Workers 35 REFUGEES AND ASYLUM SEEKERS AS WORKERS: RADICAL TEMPORARINESS AND LABOUR EXPLOITATION IN AUSTRALIA LAURIE BERG,* SARA DEHM** AND ANTHEA VOGL*** This article analyses the emerging evidence of labour exploitation of refugees and asylum seekers on temporary visas in Australia. Over the last decade, Australia’s temporary protection regime has been marked by profound uncertainty in relation to visa status, unfettered Ministerial discretion, and the punitive exercise of governmental power. We argue that this framework amounts to abuse of governmental power, confining refugees and asylum seekers who arrived by boat to a situation of radical temporariness in Australia. This results not only in the denial of permanent protection and social inclusion to these refugees and asylum seekers, but also provides conditions for greater abuse of power by employers in the realm of workplaces across Australia. We outline six factors related to temporary immigration status and other punitive, unpredictable and arbitrary elements in this regulatory regime that currently increase the vulnerability of refugees and asylum seekers to labour exploitation. I INTRODUCTION In 2012, Mr Thalaisingham arrived in Australia from Sri Lanka by boat to seek asylum, after fleeing state persecution of Tamils in Sri Lanka. After prolonged detention at Christmas Island Immigration Detention Centre, he was granted a temporary visa allowing him to work in Australia. By 2018, Mr Thalaisingham was engaged as a casual employee for Polytrade, one of three major recycling companies in Victoria. There, Mr Thalaisingham regularly worked a 12-hour overnight shift and was paid a flat rate of $22 per hour. 1 In addition, he faced an extraordinarily harsh working environment with poor ventilation and little protection against the * Associate Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Technology Sydney. The authors thank Louisa Luong and Olivia Rawlings-Way for their stellar research and editing assistance, respectively, as well as the anonymous reviewers for their helpful suggestions. ** Senior Lecturer, Faculty of Law, University of Technology Sydney. *** Senior Lecturer, Faculty of Law, University of Technology Sydney. 1 Ben Schneiders, ‘Massive Wage Underpayments at Major Recycler a “National Disgrace”’, The Sydney Morning Herald (online, 5 October 2019) <https://www.smh.com.au/business/workplace/massive-wage- underpayments-at-major-recycler-a-national-disgrace-20191005-p52xw8.html>.
REFUGEES AND ASYLUM SEEKERS AS WORKERS: RADICAL TEMPORARINESS AND LABOUR EXPLOITATION IN AUSTRALIA
Jul 11, 2023
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