Foreign students get below-minimum wages in Australia

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Melbourne, Jun 12 : Nearly 60% of international students, including Indians, in the Australian state of Victoria , could be receiving below minimum wage rates, a new study has revealed.

The study conducted by Monash and Melbourne University academics on 200 international students drawn from nine universities across Victoria revealed that up to 58.1% of students surveyed were paid below $15 an hour, with 33.9% receiving less than $10 an hour. The findings from a three-million Australian dollar, Australian Research Council-funded study comes just a month after hundreds of taxi drivers, many of whom were students from India, protested against conditions in their industry.

The study revealed that international students were often pressured to take up jobs not wanted by domestic workers and at least a third work over 20 hours allowed under study visas, forcing them to take jobs ‘off the books’ with no industrial relations protection. The influx of international students working outside industrial relations controls adversely affects overall conditions in the workforce.

“There were signs the Victorian government was developing policy options,” Chris Nyland, one of the academics involved in the study said, but he hit out at the Federal government for its ‘protracted’ reply. “The Rudd government has shown no sign of recognising this as an issue,” Nyland was quoted as saying by The Age. “There was a 94-page higher education discussion document (from the Rudd government) that was issued. I have gone through that and there is lots of references to international education, student fees, nothing in there about international student welfare,” Nyland said.

Victorian workplace rights advocate Tony Lawrence said a number of complaints about exploitation had been made to his office by international students.