Remember the old argument against immigration, popular when the White Australia Policy was first fought for, that immigration acts to destroy Australian workers’ wages? Guess what? A chapter in a new book by A. Stewart (et al.), The Wage Crisis in Australia, (2018), by Iain Campbell, “Temporary Migrant Workers (TMWs), Underpayment and Predatory business Models,” shows that Australia’s immigration system is undercutting the wages of Australian workers:
https://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2018/11/australias-immigration-system-undercuts-australian-workers/
“This chapter argues that the expansion of temporary labour migration is a significant development in Australia and that it has implications for wage stagnation… Three main facts about their presence in Australia are relevant to the discussion of wage stagnation. First, there are large numbers of TMWs in Australia, currently around 1.2 million persons. Second, those numbers have increased strongly over the past 15 years. Third, when employed, many TMWs are subject to exploitation, including wage payments that fall below — sometimes well below — the minimum levels specified in employment regulation… One link to slow wages growth, as highlighted by orthodox economics, stems from the simple fact of increased numbers, which add to labour supply and thereby help to moderate wages growth. This chapter argues, however, that the more salient point concerns the way many TMWs are mistreated within the workplace in industry sectors such as food services, horticulture, construction, personal services and cleaning. TMW underpayments, which appear both widespread in these sectors and systemic, offer insights into labour market dynamics that are also relevant to the general problem of slow wages growth…