Worrigee Road is one of the Shoalhaven's prettiest drives, but behind a line of scraggly bushes one house looks isolated and forbidding.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Inside the main home, 24 Filipino and Chinese workers sleep and eat. There are eight rooms set aside for sleeping, one combined dining/eating room, and one bathroom (with just one toilet).
The workers are being paid less than $20,000 a year for working 60 to 70-hour weeks at Manildra's Bomaderra site, according to the CFMEU, and are being charged $13,000 a year board.
The workers keep the house as clean and tidy as possible under the circumstances, but there is something ineffably sad about the barren walls and dark hallways, and the ranks of mattresses and double-bunks, some with small piles of personal possessions next to them.
The day I met them the workers were proud to announce they finally had a flat-screen television.
Next to the main house is a shed where I was told the supervisor lived; he had his own toilet. Behind the main house is a small brick structure that I assume houses the remaining five workers.
Related stories:
