Use Of Cheap Foreign Labour On WA Projects

• General News
• 15th March 2012

At Cape Preston in the North West, Chinese workers are being paid less than half of what their Aussie counterparts earn

A few years back a financial adviser I know and respect told me that in coming years North West Mining projects run by foreign interests would be manned almost exclusively by immigrant labour on temporary work visas.

He predicted that big Chinese and Indian investors would soon begin bringing in their own workforces to work the big oil, gas and mining projects to avoid paying our high labour costs.

He could be on the money if TWU sources working on the Citic Pacific mining project at Cape Preston are right in what they are telling us.

The massive project is located 100 kilometres south west of Karratha in Western Australia's Pilbara region. It is the largest magnetite mining and processing operation under construction in Australia.

The project is one of China's largest investments into the Australian resources sector and is owned by Hong Kong-based CITIC Pacific.

We are told the project employs 4,200 workers in three separate camps and hundreds of them are overseas imports - mainly Chinese.

The immigrant labour is bought in under temporary visa laws and they can be paid as little as $50,000 a year. Well under half what Aussie fly-in fly out workers earn.

According to one insider the immigrants are doing all kind of jobs. Driving concrete agitator trucks, welding, electrical work, general labouring and just about anything else they are asked to do.

We are told interpreters are used to translate the work instructions of on-site supervisors into English for the visa workers.

In 2010 there was controversy on the minesite when Australian workers complained about the 'lumpy straw mattresses' that had been shipped in for their beds.

Media reports at the time said mattresses were unloaded straight off a ship from China without undergoing our mandatory quarantine checks.

Australian workers rebelled against their use and they were eventually replaced with decent - 'bug free' bedding.

We are told the site is fully fenced off with approximately 75 kilometres of fencing around the mine's perimeter.

This, people say, has turned the site into a 'special economic zone' which allows the company to escape customs and quarantine laws.

In October 2010 a Citic spokesman denied rumours that Australian workers on the site would be replaced with workers on visas. So much for that statement.

The TWU has joined with other unions in demanding answers on the above allegations from immigration officials and Immigration Minister Chris Bowen.

This is a developing story and we fear there is much more to come.