Latest news with #offshoreworkers
ABC News
4 days ago
- Business
- ABC News
This Filipino woman struck a blow against Australian businesses 'exploiting' offshore workers
A woman in the Philippines who scored a surprise win against an Australian business in the Fair Work Commission has blazed a trail for potential legal claims — including class actions — by offshore workers, lawyers say. Joanna Pascua, who was sacked last year by a Brisbane credit repair outfit for whom she was doing paralegal work from her home in Manila, drew on her experience advocating for clients in Australia to file an unfair dismissal claim. She won the right to Australian workplace protections in a watershed case that raises questions about the burgeoning practice of businesses hiring overseas workers to sidestep local wage costs and obligations. "I've never heard of something like this, it was just really a long shot for me," Ms Pascua said. Ms Pascua said she celebrated with her family over burritos and received a flurry of congratulatory messages from other Filipinos working for companies in Australia and New Zealand. "I can say it is monumental because Australia has just established its leadership in [an international] labour workforce," she said. Ms Pascua's contract with Doessel Group, in Brisbane's north, required her to investigate credit claims and liaise with Australian banks and credit agencies on behalf of clients of a related business, My CRA Lawyers. Working from home with a phone and a computer, she was paid $18 (about 640 Philippine pesos) an hour. According to a legal filing for Ms Pascua in the Fair Work Commission, she was likely among "tens of thousands" of people hired by Australian companies as "offshore contractors" when many of them were in fact employees left without protections either in Australia or their home countries. "Ms Pascua's case demonstrates how offshore contracting exploits a grey area of the law to the short-term economic benefit of Australian businesses, such as Doessel, but to the detriment of the labourers involved," the submission said. "Offshore contractors are performing precarious and informal jobs without social protection, for the immediate commercial gain of the businesses that acquire their labour." This "grey market" is associated with small Australian businesses that, unlike large corporations, cannot afford to set up overseas subsidiaries that employ staff who are protected by industrial laws in those countries. In February last year, Doessel Group sacked Ms Pascua after accusing her of unlawfully copying company and client information to her personal drive — allegations she denied. "I couldn't believe it. This couldn't be happening. This is not real. There's no basis for it," she said. "Something in me was nagging that I was wronged, and I can't make a company listen to Philippine law because of how it was set up." Ms Pascua said her work "happily defending consumers" had shown her that "Australian law is very considerate on the actual circumstances of the consumer or the individual [and disputes] will get sorted out in a very fair way". She decided to file for unfair dismissal but had to overcome a key hurdle as a "virtual worker" living a 5,800-kilometre plane flight away. "When I first submitted my complaint, I was told that you can't file an unfair dismissal because you're not even resident in Australia," Ms Pascua said. "But it doesn't say in the [Fair Work Act that] you have to be physically in Australia. "I'm actually an employee … I do everything I'm expected to do in a daily grind, 8:30 to five o'clock Australian, Queensland time, I have to be there, have to be on time and all that." Doessel Group argued she was an "independent contractor" outside Australia's jurisdiction. But last September, Fair Work Commission Deputy President Tony Slevin found that this "belied that actual nature of the contract [and] Ms Pascua was not conducting her own business". He ruled that Ms Pascua was an employee of an Australian company, and entitled to national minimum work standards, which include a wage of at least $24.87 an hour. Doessel Group tried to appeal the ruling but it was upheld by the full bench of the commission in February. This has cleared the way for Ms Pascua to continue her unfair dismissal claim, and to pursue unpaid wages through the Fair Work Ombudsman. "Will I be contesting unfair dismissal? No, probably not," Doessel Group founder Graham Doessel told the ABC. "Don't know yet. I haven't made a commercial decision. And have I employed somebody to replace her from the Philippines? Absolutely not. "In my particular case, once bitten, twice shy." Mr Doessel said that Ms Pascua had been "paid more than a senior solicitor, more than an airline pilot" in the Philippines. Mr Doessel said the ruling would likely harm thousands of small businesses in the same boat as his, including "accountants, solicitors, brokers, finance companies". Brisbane lawyer Alex Moriarty, who took on Ms Pascua's case late last year, told the ABC it put companies "on notice that employing offshore workers is not an easy loophole for avoiding Australia's workplace protections". "Virtual and remote workers … can easily be deemed to be, in effect, Australian employees, with all the same rights under our Fair Work Act, including its minimum wage, gender pay equity, unfair dismissal and anti-bulling and anti-discrimination protections," he said. Sydney-based employment lawyer Sarah Capello said she agreed these legal claims could follow, but barriers would include access to litigation funds for what tended not to be "big money cases". "There might be a couple of instances where it does occur but I don't think it's going to be as often as we might think," Ms Capello said. "I might be wrong … but I would be really surprised if this was the case because of the reliance in the Philippines of the [remote] work coming back to Australia." Ms Pascua said remote jobs had meant new opportunities for working people in the Philippines, especially university-educated women who had raised their families and wanted to make a fresh contribution. But after her sacking, she felt a need to show her adult children that she could "practise what I preached to them growing up", including to her daughter, a law student who she hoped would one day become a judge. "Do I want them to feel that it's OK to feel this way and not do anything about it?" Ms Pascua said.
CBC
4 days ago
- Business
- CBC
SeaRose FPSO workers vote to join Unifor, with union also eyeing Hebron platform
A majority of workers on the SeaRose FPSO have voted to join Canada's largest union, and Unifor says it's now hoping to do the same with Hebron workers. Unifor already represents workers on the Hibernia and Terra Nova FPSO platforms, and the vote by SeaRose workers represents the first time in two decades offshore oil workers have joined a union. "We all know that offshore workers face unique challenges out there, and for that reason they need a strong union. And we're so pleased that they chose Unifor as the union that will fight for them and will represent them as we move forward," Jennifer Murray, Unifor's Atlantic regional director, told CBC News. Unifor sent members of its organizing department to Belfast last year while the SeaRose was in refit at an Irish shipyard. Murray could not provide an exact number, but said the percentage of the roughly 200 SeaRose workers who signed cards during the union drive in Northern Ireland was "not an overwhelming majority." "We got the majority," said Murray. The union filed for certification with the labour board in October, but Murray said "challenges with the employers" led to delays in counting the ballots, and certification was finalized on May 23. Murray said the union is now waiting for collective bargaining to begin. The SeaRose is majority owned (60 per cent) and operated by Calgary-based Cenovus Energy, while Suncor Energy has a 40 per cent ownership stake. In a statement, Cenovus spokesperson Colleen McConnell said the owners "have long had an open and collaborative relationship with workers on SeaRose, and this will not change." McConnell added that Cenovus will work with the union on the next stage of the process, which is negotiating an inaugural collective agreement. Cenovus 'trying to instill confusion,' says union But Murray signalled that relations are off to a bumpy start, and she accused the company of trying to alter the employment terms and conditions of some employees while a so-called "freeze provision" is in place. She said Cenovus is "trying to instill confusion in the workers," and said the union is reassuring the workers that the union will "continue to fight for them always." The 271-metre long SeaRose is a floating production, storage and offloading vessel that began operating in the White Rose oil field in the Jeanne d'Arc Basin in late 2005. The vessel resumed production in March following a extensive refit that will extend the life of the White Rose oil field by about 14 years. The SeaRose produced more than 6.6 million barrels of crude in 2022, according to reports filed with the offshore regulator. According to mandated benefits reports, just over 300 people were employed in offshore positions in the White Rose field in late 2024, including on the SeaRose, support vessels, helicopters and shuttle tankers. Murray was unable to say whether the SeaRose certification will include future workers on the West White Rose expansion project. "That's the question of the hour," said Murray. "But we will gladly represent them. And certainly if they are not all automatically certified with Unifor, we will be out talking to these workers, encouraging them to also join the union." The 145-metre tall, 210,000-tonne concrete gravity base for the West White Rose project, which was constructed in Argentia, is now floating in Placentia Bay. It's expected to be towed to the oil field sometime this month, after ballasting operations are complete. The 25,000-tonne topsides for the platform is currently being transported by ship from Ingleside, Texas, and is scheduled to be installed on the concrete platform in July. The West White Rose project is expected to create roughly 250 permanent offshore jobs, and first-oil is forecasted for the second quarter of 2026, with daily production eventually expected to reach 80,000 barrels. The new platform will send the oil back to the SeaRose FPSO through a series of subsea flowlines. Meanwhile, Murray said the union is making connections with workers on Hebron, which is now the only non-unionized oil platform in the offshore. "We're pretty confident that we will see the rest of them coming on board," she said.
