Last week I labelled the Coalition’s controversial $840 million Youth-Jobs PaTH program – to prepare, trial and ultimately hire young Australians – “subsidised slave labour in disguise”:
Consider PaTH from an employer’s perspective. They get a free kick as the Government is not only the one paying the intern, but the employer also receives $1,000 up front for employing the intern without the need to worry about sick days, annual leave or penalty rates. Then if the intern is offered a job, the employer receives another payment of $6500 or $10,000 from taxpayers. What a deal!
Why would an employer hire a young worker on a casual basis when they can effectively get paid to take on an intern and pay them $4 an hour to pull beers or make coffees?
Now we have received further proof, with Hungry Jack’s substituting ordinary seasonal casual staff with PaTH interns:
Fairfax reported more examples of exploitation and rorting following Senate estimates hearings last week:
One business cycled through 17 interns without providing one with employment, another rostered interns to work for double the amount of time legally allowed, and a third forced an intern to work for 60 hours a fortnight…
More than $297 million has been spent on uncapped youth wage subsidies across the whole PaTH program so far…
Labor has labelled the program “exploitative” and “ineffective”, following allegations of underpayment and forced overtime.
PaTH is unambiguously poor policy that institutionalises labour exploitation. It must be abandoned by the incoming Labor Government
