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This is an interview transcription about Samay Sabharwal
Samay Sabharwal (SUPRA Officer, Represent All International Post Graduate Students at University of Sydney)
As an international students officer, do you know how many students come here and ask for help? (About their overworked or underpaid situation)
Overworked and underpaid we category as them as discrimination. However, we do not have a statistics as to overworked and underpaid statistics. It’s hard because discrimination is a board umbrella term which include other sorts of discrimination...so unfortunately i don’t have the exact number of people who are overworked, but our case work has been increase constantly over the last two years. More students are coming to us, regarding this problem among other problem as well. I think this is also because the council has done a lot of engagement work. And, a lot more students are aware the services we offer, so I think more then been more cases off discrimination and staff like that. I think it’s also a lot more people are to coming out to speak to us and getting our help for the same.
Does these students (overworked or underpaid) a lot?
Yeah. There are quite a few number of cases of students being overworked and underpaid. Usually like you can segregate them in two categories, one is working on cash. I think the main reason for that for happen is a lot of students, the international students they don’t know much... Sydney is expensive, it is start to get job as well when you initially come to Australia. So lot of students tend to do retail job and staff like that. The employer take advantages in their positions. Since they just come, they don’t know much about the system or hard works and then they underpaid. And they ask to work. And only very little students realize that they are been exploited and they come to us. Then we tried to help them with it. So that is the students takes exploited because where the circumstance are not knowing enough or just need in surviving in Australia. Other one is illegal jobs. Even these jobs are legal, but the only thing is there are not paid on paper, like they pay by cash in hand, so that is illegal employment. Other time is when there is a legal employment, for example student work for 20 hours, on paper is 20 hours, they can paid for 20, but actually they worked 30 hours. So students would be ask for work 30 hours in that workplace, so what happen is, the employer will show or inflected it salary. So they will say that the employee get paid for $25 an hour for example, but actually they getting paid only $20, they are working for 30 hours. But, when the payslip comes, on the payslip they got only between 20 hours worked. For example, if the actual salary is $20 an hour, so 20 multiply by 20 will be 400, so they are do 400, but actually has worked 30 hours for $400. So only on the paper, they put a higher salary. It is very unfair and it’s exploitation, but the students who just come from their home country, this is a new country, they need money, so they can do anything, they are really helpless. Base on this circumstance, that’s humblers take advantage of certain students.
Which Country does these students comes from?
All over the world, because it’s usually mainly the international students, not so much on the domestic, because the domestic students are much more aware and inform of their rights, what can be done, what cannot be done. But international students is mainly...so 71% of the international students are from China, so obviously we see more cases from China, and then we see from other places, like the Middle East, South Asia, South America, so there’s no particular country, it’s from everywhere.
Why these things happened a lot?
Like I said, these thing happen mainly because international students are more wantable do exploitation, because of circumstance like Sydney being expensive than coming form a foreign country, and haven’t been aware of their rights, and usually, you know a new place, you are not as confident as you would be in your home country. You are a little scared, you don’t know what’s gonna happened, you don’t know if you can fight the system and employer. And also you need the salary to pay a rent or expense or whatever. A lot of students are also aware of the laws and rules and their rights, but because they need money and they cannot finding a job or something, they have to do because the circumstances.
Why they can’t find a good job?
Because as an international students, it’s very difficult to get a job. Because when you come into Australia and especially casual jobs, the most common jobs are hospitality jobs and retail jobs. What those jobs are front office or front of house job where a lot of interaction with customers. So we’ve seen employers tend to hire local students because they are the locals, they know the local culture, it’s easy for them to interact with the customers and which is a form of racial discrimination again that somewhat the students face through and we get lot of cases. So it’s very difficult for them because and international students’ language...language problem, culture problem, it’s just the employer thinks the domestic students or domestic employee is better dealing with customer than someone from outside. That’s the reason it’s very difficult for international students to find a job in Sydney or in Australia. Domestic students doing work “the cash on hand” jobs lower than minimum wage jobs, so those other jobs where the international students get exploited.
Why we can’t solve this problem?
I think it’s very difficult to solve this problem. I think there are couple of factors. One is international students are scared to come out and speak. So.. that is one reason, so...I think more and more international students who facing this should come out speak and get a help. They don’t need to fight with the employer, but they can come and ask for our assistance. We represent all post graduate students at the University of Sydney. And, for undergraduate students, SLC. We have full time layer in our offices and we provide service free of charge. So... students need to come out and use our services so they... so that we can be you know more aware of how these things happening, how we can work with them. That is one. The second...problem which we face like in educating this problem...is that, this is ...this problem are trigger from the extent environment and in fact is beyond out of our control. This problem happen somewhere in the city or some workplace where like it’s outside SUPRA, outside campus until somebody bring us the problem and comes to us with the problem. We really cannot do anything because this is people exploiting other people. And, if someone decide to that in some space, you know there is no way for us to get that information until the victim, other person who is been exploited come to us and tells us this is happen with them. And then, only then we can act on it. But, I am sure there’s so many cases happening currently by the student working and being exploited. But we don’t have there information because we aren’t the student body, we can not investigate, we are not the government that we can go investigate and see people are working with pay and without pay, how many hours. That is the government’s job. But our job is to help students or help people who come to us saying that they are been exploited or come to us with any other kind of problems. So I think that there is a problem. We cannot control what people do outside. And students need to come out more and speak to us. It won’t solve the problem, but we can definitely help a lot more people if they come out.
Why the government don’t check the restaurant or they don’t check the retail shop? Or does they do it? Then why the things keep happening?
No it’s not like the government does not do perform checks. I think the government does a lot from their angle to prevent this kind of system. But in the end, it’s a big country and as you see else- world in the world as well. There are always people who get exploited or claim on with happens. It’s impossible to check every business every day. And also, even of the check, employers also clear and finding ways do...(X: like they do write a paper is 20 hours, but actually they do thirty hours). So physically, to follow someone and see how many hours am I working. It’s very difficult almost impossible. If I am doing 30 hours, you can’t have someone follow me and look at me what I am doing in which way. Thousand of people are on the country, tens of thousands of students are on the country on this happening. So, it’s...it’s challenge. But, I think people who are been exploited or feel like they are been exploited should come out, get our help and we can have this issue. By the same time, they also need the money, so they are scared if we do something, the employer would fire them from the job. So...what do they do, how do they get their money, how do they afford the living expenses. So, it’s wider problem which cannot be tackled just one way.
Is there any other reasons?
I can’t think other reason, but I do know there is a big problem and a lot of students re facing it.
In the SUPRA annual report, 2015 it’s six cases, in 2016 it became 16, last year is 14.
I just talking to the education officer in SUPRA, and in 2016, this is before I was a part of SUPRA, couple of students had reported being paid 47 cents and hour for their work. Less then half a dollars and the SUPRA did help them and they did get justice in the end. I am very surprise to hear that it’s less than half a dollar per hour and that level of exploitation also happening.
Do you have any recommendations for those people who are suffering this unfair treatment?
Yes. One thing I notice, I found out after I came into this position is that discrimination doesn’t only happen in terms of ours or they can be smaller, settler places where discrimination happens, which is sexual discrimination in work place is a big issue that we have been talking about. The lot of issues that don’t officially go to our case work team but students coming approach our services officers, to talk about what they can do. Because like I said earlier, they want the money so they are not go to the case work team and register a case. Because they don’t want to lose their job. So, in those cases i recommended to, at least, be valuate through their rights. As the students as a worker, go to the government site have look at work rights you have. And try to be aware so you can find out if this discrimination is happening around, because lot of time students are not aware of discrimination on the small scale. An international students might not be given a job in the front, they might be put out at the back of the kitchen, they just scaly staff, because they are international not because they are not capable of being in front of a house or dealing with customers. So, I would suggest recommend keep an eye for small sites like this, if you feel like you have been giving the back shifts or some of the domestic students or...you know you have been giving all the hard work or all the odd jobs are coming to you and this are also like case of discrimination that we see. And other thing is if that is happening, proud to coming knew our new services, if you really want a job or money, at least start to looking for other options and then coming tell us. Because, lot of time students when they find another job, they forget about the discrimination they face in the previous job and they just move on. But, once they find an another job, it’s important to inform us or coming to anyone off the discrimination they faced earlier so that it doesn’t happen to other students and people who are engaging in this kind of business, they are engaging in this kind of behaviour repeatedly, can be find out and caught and appropriate action can be taken.