• Compliance & enforcement

Labour Hire Authority (LHA) officers have identified several alleged issues during a site visit to a meat processing facility in Victoria’s south-east, including issues regarding worker pay and entitlements.

Through interviews with the host and workers, as well as collecting documentary evidence, LHA identified several alleged issues including that the workers may have been:

• underpaid, and had entitlements including superannuation withheld
• paid in cash and not given payslips
• threatened regarding their visa status.

Under the Labour Hire Licensing Act 2018 (Vic), providers must comply with all relevant workplace laws and may have their licence cancelled for non-compliance.

LHA is continuing its investigations into the alleged non-compliance.

These actions underscore LHA’s commitment to enforcing labour hire law across industries and ensuring all parties in the labour hire supply chain adhere to their legal obligations.

LHA compliance focus on the meat and poultry processing industries

The meat and poultry processing industries have historically seen significant rates of worker mistreatment and exploitation, so are defined as prescribed industries under the Act.

The industries are also at higher risk of worker exploitation due to their high proportion of migrant workers from a range of backgrounds, including PALM scheme workers.

LHA has cancelled a number of labour hire licences in the meat processing industry to date, after uncovering non-compliance with legal obligations through LHA’s intelligence-led compliance program.

LHA also undertakes compliance checks through visits to meat and poultry processing sites. During a site visit, LHA compliance officers may ask questions or ask to see documents that demonstrate what a business is doing to meet their legal obligations. This may include details of a provider’s labour hire licence, or information about the providers that a host is using.

In July, LHA undertook a communications campaign targeting workers in the meat and poultry processing industries across digital, social media and press channels.

The campaign aimed to raise meat and poultry processing workers’ awareness of their rights and how to report unlawful treatment by labour hire businesses.

Information for workers – along with posters, handouts and digital assets – are available for download on a dedicated webpage.

More information

More information for meat and poultry processing businesses can be found on the LHA website, or by downloading the LHA meat and poultry processing guidance for providers and hosts.

The LHA Report a Problem tool helps drive investigations of alleged exploitation of labour hire workers and providers breaching their labour hire obligations.

Anyone with a complaint, concern, or information about currently operating labour hire businesses is encouraged to let LHA know via the Report a Problem tool.

Find out more about how to report non-compliance or object to a licence application on the LHA website.