Your rights at work
Fair work is for everyone
Fair and safe work is for everyone in Australia.
This is important information for all workers. It could help you, a friend or family member.
Know your rights
- The National Employment Standards are what any worker in Australia can expect.
- Fair Work Tasmania has information to check your pay and entitlements as well as tools to record hours and online learning.
- Fair Work Ombudsman information for migrants about your workplace rights.
Know how to recognise exploitation
Knowing how to recognise the exploitation of migrant workers may help you, a friend or family member.
The Report of the Migrant Workers taskforce (March 2019) lists the following examples of unlawful worker exploitation:
- wage underpayment, or ‘cash-back’ arrangements
- pressure to work beyond the restrictions of a visa
- up-front payment or ‘deposit’ for a job
- failure to provide workplace entitlements such as paid leave, superannuation
- tax avoidance through the use of cash payments to workers
- unpaid training
- working conditions that are unsafe
- unfair dismissal
- misclassification of workers as independent contractors instead of employees
- unfair deductions from wages for accommodation, training, food or transport
- threats to have a person’s visa cancelled by authorities
- withholding of a visa holder’s passport
- requiring migrant workers to use and pay for sub-standard on-site accommodation
Know your responsibilities
- Know your responsibility to create a fair workplace for customers and employees. Equal Opportunity Tasmania offers training.
- Know your responsibility to be keep the workplace safe, including COVID-19 safety with Worksafe Tasmania’s Webinar Wednesdays.
- Registered professions have to maintain standards to protect the public. The regulatory body (e.g. AHPRA for health workers) that sets out those expectations.
WHS certificate for your resume
Complete Tasmania’s online Work Health and Safety induction module for a certificate.
You can list this on your resume to demonstrate that you’re proactive about safety at work.
Who can help
- JobWatch is an employment rights legal centre helpline for Tasmanians.
- Equal Opportunity Tasmania has formal and informal ways to report discrimination.
- Worksafe Tasmania has a helpline for information and advice.
- Unions have help for members. There are industry-specific unions or unions such as Unions Tasmania made up of affiliated unions.
- Worker Assist Tasmania is free independent legal advice for workers who have been injured on the job.
Photo credit: Johnathan Macedo on Unsplash
“[Most valuable was] understanding the overall job market and how to develop overseas qualifications into Tasmania job market”
Skilled migrant, 23 February 2021
About MRC Tas
Migrant Resource Centre Tasmania (MRC Tas) is a not-for-profit organisation that has been supporting people from migrant and humanitarian backgrounds to settle successfully in Tasmania since 1979.
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About Migrant network tasmania
Migrant Network Tasmania draws on the goodwill, stories and tips of migrants and the wider community to help fellow migrants to establish lives and careers in Tasmania.