Clearing table after table of empty beer and wine glasses in a busy bar, Ashleigh Mounser realised she was being had. The four-hour shift was pitched to her as a job try-out. But there was no training, no job at the end – and no pay.
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“The owner made no effort to train me in making drinks,” Mounser says. “He mostly used me to collect glasses from the tables on a busy Saturday night, which is a strange time to genuinely train someone.”
It was not the first or last time she would feel ripped off. After working at one charcoal chicken outlet for $12 an hour – well below the award wage for her age – Mounser was offered just $10 an hour to work at another outlet in the same chain the following day.
Like many in her generation, the University of Wollongong creative writing graduate was caught in Australia's burgeoning world of underpayment – where lip service is paid to industrial laws that are strict on paper, but loosely enforced.
One night alone at home, Mounser decided it was time to vent. The forum was the University of Wollongong’s Students Buy and Sell Facebook site, and her post about her experience of being ripped off uncorked a rush of similar tales from 67 young people.
“The response was enormous,'' says Mounser, a petite 22-year-old with long wavy hair, nose ring and a quietly assertive manner. “I didn’t expect the cases to be as bad as they were. It’s a university town and people are desperate for work and they’re desperate for money.”
The stories that emerged are part of a vast system of cheap or even free labour in Wollongong’s growing hospitality and retail industries that a Fairfax Media investigation and Mounser’s social media experiment have uncovered.
A hotline and website have been set up to ensure that every worker across the country is able to check payments and pay rates.
South Coast Labor Council secretary Arthur Rorris says Mounser has uncovered a culture of exploitation. ‘’One thin is certain, given the scale of this scandal, if it is happening in Wollongong it is happening everywhere,’’ he said.
A hotline and website have been set up to ensure that every worker across the country is able to check payments and pay rates.
“The idea behind this is to ensure that young workers in particular have somewhere to register their details, check their details and if they’re owed money to initiate that process," Mr Rorris said. www.claimyourpay.com.au and 1300 486 466