Hi again. Here is the second part of the topic highlighted last post.

Main reporter: I was earning approximately $180 a week doing market research. Nowhere near enough to pay the rent, bills, food, full price on public transport, and try and save something for the second year’s college fees.

I found a job at a petrol station as a checkout chick cum toilet cleaner. One unusually quiet afternoon, I began to stock the shelves, while keeping an eye on the bowsers. Suddenly I spotted a man talking on his mobile phone while filling up his 4-wheel drive. Well aware of my responsibilities, but also acutely aware of the disdain with which that man looked at me as I walked up to him, I hesitantly alerted him to the safety rules which said that the use of mobile phones wasn’t permitted, due to risk of fire.

‘Go back to where you came from’.

The curry muncher check-out chick had overturned the power pyramid and couldn’t be allowed to get away with it.

Now this wasn’t exactly high racism, I wasn’t kicked unconscious nor stabbed in the chest, nor killed, as was Nitin Garg in Melbourne. Yet this sort of thing is such a common experience for many of us who are not quite first world looking, and it’s insidious. It’s the larger half of the iceberg that’s submerged and doesn’t get splashed across the news.

Sir Henry Parkes, that architect of Australian Federation, said that the crimson ties of kinship bind us all. How was he to know that some crimson is more equal than other crimson?

Student 1: And there are lot of restaurant guys who are ripping off the students. They are paying $2 or $3. The big scam is the Chinese and Indian guys are doing this. Chinese paying like $4, $5.

Student 2: We’re getting paid how much? 60 bucks? For 10-hour shifts? 70 bucks. That’s it.

Student 1: That’s slavery set up by the government. The government allow these restaurant people to exploit the students. They’re giving authority to the restaurant people to rip off the students. They have set a regulatory award wages like $14, $15 per hour, but who’s getting that? And the restaurant guys threaten them. There are lot of Indian restaurants who are ripping off the students, and the sexual harassment, restaurant guys are sexually harassing the girls who came on a student visa here.

Main reporter: Crimson ties can multi-task. In the flash of an eyelid they can become a noose, as we have seen with the recent crimes against Indians in Australia, by other Indians in Australia.

I door-knocked on a few Indian restaurants and soon landed a waitressing job.

I worked 6 to 7 hours non-stop on very busy shifts. The Indian owner paid me the grand sum of $50 a night.

When the restaurant changed hands, the new owner, also of Indian heritage, met me at the door as I arrived for work at 5 ‘clock sharp one day, and abruptly told me that she didn’t need my services any more. Then she turned on her heel and went inside to microwave some frozen butter chicken for someone’s takeaway order. Who cared if I’d spent nearly all of my Australian life serving at that restaurant?

Enough said. You can make your own judgment regarding overseas students studying and working in Australia.

See you next time for a brand new topic!

All my best,

James E

James Evangelidis

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Tagged as: Overseas students, slavery, working poor