The International Transport Workers' Federation's Australian inspectorate is claiming big wins as it aims to claw back an estimated $65 million a year in wages stolen from international sailors by their employers in Australian waters.
Key points:
- International Transport Workers' Federation's Ian Bray, says it will record its best-ever recovery of lost wages
- Mr Bray says many of the seafarers have an extended family who rely upon the income
- Jim Stanford, co-author of a report titled, Robbed at Sea, says the problem is worse than it appears
Wage theft is an ongoing issue in the shipping industry.
Last week at Hay Point in the Mackay region, a vessel was banned from Australian waters for one year after an inspection revealed issues of wage theft and worker mistreatment.
But this year, the International Transport Workers' Federation's (ITF) Australian coordinator, Ian Bray, said it would record its best-ever recovery of lost wages.
"Last year, we recovered $US6.7 million ($10.3 million) of wage recovery, and that was probably the greatest result that the ITF inspectorate had achieved over a calendar year in the history of the Australian Inspectorate," he said.
"This year we're not even in September yet, and we're at $US10 million ($15.4 million) wage recovered."
Mr Bray said they were on track to recover more than double the total wages recovered last year.
"It's not unreasonable to think that we'll finish somewhere between $US14 million and $US16 million ($21.6 million to $24.7 million) for the calendar year in wage recovery."
So how bad is the problem?
The estimate of $65 million in stolen wages came from a report released by the Australia Institute's Centre for Future Work in 2022, entitled Robbed at Sea.
The centre's director, Jim Stanford, who was one of the report's authors, said the estimate was based on several factors.
"We used the actual data on inspections and how often the inspections find wage theft and how large that wage theft typically is," Dr Stanford said.
"And we use the actual data on the total amount of ship traffic to and from Australian ports."
But he said the problem could be even bigger.
"If anything, the suggestion is that number is probably low," Dr Stanford said.
"In fact, the wage theft, including loss of entitlements and benefits, health care etc. for these international seafarers, it's probably worse than we have indicated."
Dr Stanford said there were several ways wage theft could happen, including when seafarers were not paid in accordance with the terms of the contract or when the contract itself offered less than the minimum wage.
Mr Bray said the average seafarer wage was $US18,000 per year ($27,775) and many of their families relied on the salaries to cover basic expenses such as food and health care.
"I think in the case of workers from the Philippines [for example], 80 per cent of their salary gets home," he said.
"You're not talking about how we perceive a family in Australia being the partner and maybe your child, two children, three children. You're talking about an extended family.
"So the effect is actually exacerbated because of the amount of people that rely on a single income."
Pauline Harris is the centre manager for Stella Maris Mackay, which provides support to about 4,000 visiting seafarers a year.
She said with Hay Point being one of the largest coal export ports in the world, seafarers were essential to the region's economy.
"Considering coal is one of our main exports, [their work] is very important," Ms Harris said.
"Basically, they're the ones taking it all around the world."
Ms Harris said although she worked directly with seafarers, issues such as wage theft were often not raised out of fear of losing employment.
"A lot of them don't open up because they're afraid they won't get another contract," she said.
But Ms Harris said she was relieved to hear of the increase in the amount of wages being recovered.
"It's great to see things are happening and more and more people are caring," she said.
More resources needed to stop wage theft
Mr Bray said while the ITF was getting better at discovering wage theft, the companies and individuals that engaged in it were also becoming better at covering their tracks.
"We're either getting better and more experienced and more effective in how we go about our job, or the situation is getting worse," he said.
"I think there's a little bit of both.
"As they get smarter, we need to be more effective in uncovering it."
Dr Stanford from the Centre for Future Work said that strengthening legislation and providing more resources to enforcement agencies could help combat the problem even more.
"What we need is stronger laws closing the loopholes that shippers can currently use to exempt themselves from minimum standard, and then [to] provide our enforcement institutions with more resources and more power to inspect and enforce those laws," he said.
"And then finally, we need to impose fines and punishments on companies that violate those standards that really make them sit up and take notice."