Capitalists in Australia blame underpayment of workers on the computer program they themselves bought. That’s the same as a millionaire shooting someone and saying ‘the gun did it!’ Expropriation would be a kindness!
The Australian Council of Trade Unions has responded:
Wage theft exists because the rights of working people have been eroded by a Government which has made attacking working people and their unions a number one priority.
The rights of unions to inspect pay records and conduct compliance checks, once understood to be essential to ensuring fair pay and treatment of working people has been stripped back.
The Fair Work Ombudsman is a woefully inadequate alternative to allowing workers’ representatives to play a stronger role in stamping out wage theft. Only 4 per cent of complaints to the FWO in 2017-18 led to the FWO exercising its compliance or enforcement powers with $40 million recovered last year. PWC estimates that $1.35 billion was stolen from workers over the same period.
It is no coincidence that since unions have been limited in their rights to inspect records and conduct spot-checks in workplaces, wage theft has risen to a national crisis. Unions stop wage theft because they protect the basic rights of working people.
The full text is here https://www.actu.org.au/actu-media/media-releases/2020/government-response-to-billions-in-systemic-calculated-wage-theft-fails-workers
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