Checking your own work rights, and who to tell

In Australia, minimum pay and conditions come from the law, not from the goodwill of the person paying you. They apply to temporary visa holders the same way they apply to citizens. The Fair Work Ombudsman is the public body that explains them and takes complaints, and its pay tools let you look up the minimum for a role yourself.

Do not rely on what a supervisor says the rate is, and do not rely on what the person next to you is being paid. The Fair Work pay pages let you find the minimum for the work you are doing, including penalty rates for weekends, public holidays and overtime where they apply.

If what you are paid is below what you find, you now have something specific to raise rather than a feeling.

This is the part people skip and regret. An employer is required to give you a payslip and to keep records, but the records that will actually help you are the ones you hold:

• Hours you started and finished, written down the same day
• What you picked or produced, if you are on a piece rate
• Payslips, and the bank credits that match them
• The name of the company that pays you, from the payslip, not the farm gate
• Any deduction, and what you were told it was for

A photograph of a notebook page each evening is enough. Guessing eight months later is not.

Check the paying entity on your payslip against ABN Lookup. Growers, labour hire companies and contractors all appear in the same workplace, and the entity that pays you is the one any claim is made against.

The Fair Work Ombudsman takes reports about pay and conditions, including from temporary visa holders. Separately, if something on IkkoPind is wrong, report the listing or the member. Reports are acted on within seven days, and a listing can be taken down while it is looked at.