Are you affected by 457 temporary visa workers?
Have you been rejected for a job in preference to a 457 temporary visa worker from overseas?
If you’re in the construction industry and have been told there is no work, only to discover the job has been given to temporary visa workers we want to know about it.
Click here to see our campaign and Action hotline.
457 Guest Workers: Slave Labour?
Are 457 guest workers here to help the skills shortage? Should they be here? What about apprenticeships? What can be done to transfer Australian trained labour to where it's needed most? 
Is it better to increase immigration of qualified tradespeople who want to make Australia their home? These are questions that are often asked. There is also a belief that some employer's say they can't get local labour and use that as an invalid excuse to import cheap labour.
At the very least any 457 guest workers should be paid and enjoy the same benefits and conditions as other Australian workers, unfortunately many in the construction and building industry are exploited and used as cheap labour. Some are forced to endure poor living conditions and live in fear of being sent home if they complain.
More often than not the conversation between an employer and a guest worker with a complaint goes as follows:
Worker: Boss, I'm not getting some rights and entitlements I should be getting under Australian law.
Employer: I'm giving you $10 an hour. If you were at home you'd be getting $2 an hour.
Worker: Boss, I'm working very long hours, I haven't had a day off for months and I'm not getting overtime rates like Australians get.
Employer: You ungrateful sod. Put your head down and keep working or you will be on a plane home.
End of conversation.
Rudd reviews 457 visa workers download details here.
Cheap labour is used to drive your wages and conditions down.
If you work on a site where you believe overseas workers either '457's' or 'illegals', are being paid slave labour rates, receiving little or no conditions, contact the union office on 9221 1055 or your union organiser.
In the meantime watch this example of how some 457 workers believed they were exploited:
