Worker Stories

March 24, 2022

Kamran came to the Migrant Workers Centre for assistance with an injury in early 2021. He was suffering from the ongoing debilitating effects of a physical injury he had sustained a few years prior working at a car wreckers company in June 2017.  Kamran had...

August 11, 2021

Abbas* came to the Migrant Workers Centre for help after a physical assault by his supervisor left him hospitalised. Abbas came to Australia in 2010 from Iraq. Despite living and working here for over a decade, he hasn’t been able to get a permanent...

June 18, 2021

Jasmine moved to Australia in 2014 on a partner sponsored visa. She got a warehouse job for retail giant Riot Art and Craft, where she worked full time on a permanent contract for nearly 6 years. In May, Jasmine came to us for advice:...

May 17, 2021

Last year, the Morrison government cruelly locked temporary visa holders out of JobKeeper and JobSeeker. Not only did this move leave over a million workers without support during the peak of the pandemic, but we’re now hearing from workers on temporary visas who had...

April 07, 2021

Ravi* reclaimed $9,288.83 in stolen wages after fighting against his employer’s unfair and incorrect classification of him as an ‘independent contractor’.Ravi, a 26 year old from India, came to Australia in 2019 with his wife who was studying. To make ends meet, he got...

February 17, 2021

2020 ended on a high for migrant worker Anil* who successfully clawed back $80,0000 in stolen wages.     Anil’s boss had been stealing his wages for four years. Anil worked at a supermarket chain regularly doing long twelve hour shifts, sometimes seven days a...

December 16, 2020

Since the Migrant Workers Centre launched in 2018, we’ve supported migrant workers to collectively recover over $1,000,000. This sum includes stolen wages, unpaid superannuation and entitlements, and WorkCover claims. While this milestone is a testament to the power of collectively organising and unionising, MWC...

September 11, 2020

Soo, Sermet and Tiff led very different lives, but their paths crossed when they found themselves without work or any federal government support amidst a pandemic - a situation shared by hundreds of thousands of migrants in Australia since COVID-19 hit. After months of...

September 11, 2020

Workers at a large recycling factory in Melbourne have achieved transformative changes at their workplace and collectively recovered over a million dollars in stolen wages.  These hard fought wins, which have taken place over the last year, are a result of the organising efforts...

March 13, 2020

Maryaan, a former anaesthetist from Iraq, talks about overcoming the barriers to finding work in Australia and the importance of mental health in workplace OH&S training. Maryaan is a health educator at the Multicultural Women’s Health Organisation, a project officer at the Murdoch Institute...