Asian workforce on Australia’s North-West Gas shelf face wages rip-off

One of the biggest global energy industry corporations involved in the oil and gas rush on the North West Shelf is using the skills shortage to import cheap Asian labour – and they’re paying the workers less than what they were promised in their contracts.

" Skilled workers from the Philippines on the Angel Project - off Western Australia - are being brought here and paid less than what an Australian 16 year old working at a McDonalds outlet could expect,"Paul Howes, AWU National Secretary, said.

" Working in sometimes dangerous conditions these workers were promised $21 an hour in their contracts by McDermott International, a Texas-based resource industry multinational.

" While this $21 an hour pay rate is well below Australian rates in the industry we've got the evidence that some of these workers are actually being paid less than $8 an hour.

Australians at the same skill level could expect an annual wage package of more than $115,000.

• Standing up for resource industry workers; their jobs and their safety - join the AWU today

McDermott International is one of the most profitable multinationals operating in the oil, gas and energy infrastructure business. In just a few weeks they are expected to report at their Texas HQ their latest financial results show they have been big winners in 2007. The influential business journal Barron's just this week listed McDermott at the top of their Bullish list.

The AWU has written to the Workplace Ombudsman and the Federal Government calling for an immediate investigation of the treatment of the workforce at the Angel Project to insist that McDermott meet all their contract obligations to their workforce.

" Community acceptance of a foreign worker program can only be maintained if there is confidence that the legitimate need for massively increased numbers of skilled workers is not being used as part of a scheme to undermine Australian living standards, and to keep Asian workers on slave-like wage structures," the AWU leader, Paul Howes, said today.

How the Government and media reacted to the AWU expose!

• Workplace Ombudsman announces probe into the underpayment of Filipino workers

• ABC current affairs radio AM reports on need to tighten up foreign labour migration laws

• Sydney Morning Herald: Gas rig workers ripped off: AWU

• ABC Perth Radio: AWU calls for more protection for migrant workers