TasFarmers Matters - Growers slave to global trade

Modern slavery is a deep issue that has massively impacted some of the world’s largest brands. In the 1990s, Nike came under heavy criticism for exploitative labour practices after a series of reports exposed the appalling conditions of the factory workers producing its shoes.

Investigations revealed that Nike’s contracted factories had employed child labourers who worked in sweatshop conditions, seven days a week, up to 16 hours a day, often for less than the minimum wage. These factories routinely ignored labour laws on overtime, safety, and basic human rights.

The backlash was so severe that it took Nike years to rebuild its reputation and restore its financial health.

Once the company’s willingness to exploit workers for profit was exposed, public outrage drove its sales downward and forced a reckoning within global manufacturing.

Even today, multinational corporations continue to face modern slavery allegations. In 2024, the BBC reported that McDonald’s in the UK had employed 16 workers trafficked from the Czech Republic between 2015 and 2019. These victims were forced to work long hours for minimal pay, with their wages stolen by a criminal gang.

According to the investigation, clear warning signs were missed: wages were paid into bank accounts belonging to other people, job applications came from non-English-speaking applicants, and gang members attended interviews as “translators.”

The victims reportedly worked between 70 and 100 hours a week and lived in squalid, unsafe housing, including a leaking shed and an unheated caravan.

When we talk about imported food, agriculture itself is a high-risk sector for modern slavery, especially with the complexity of global supply chains.

Weak national standards, limited legislation, and inconsistent oversight, especially in rural areas, mean workers often have little protection in those countries. Unlike Australia, some nations also lack mandatory corporate reporting obligations.

Yet Australia is not immune. In 2024, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission revealed that the billion-dollar fashion label White Fox had failed to submit the reports required under the Modern Slavery Act 2018, a reminder that even here at home, compliance is far from universal.

The Modern Slavery Act was enacted so large companies must report on how they identify and address slavery risks within their operations and supply chains. It applies to all entities with annual consolidated revenue above $100 million, covering issues such as forced labour, human trafficking, and debt bondage. 

Recent price negotiations between the state’s potato growers and vegetable processors who are owned by multi-national organisations have put extreme pressure on growers to supply product at a lower cost, in an environment where input costs are significantly rising. 

These corporations have referenced benchmarked production costs for product sourced from third-world countries which do not have the same employment, food safety or product quality standards.

Improved production efficiencies alone will not allow producers to meet target prices at a maintained farm profit. 

To supply potatoes to the state’s processors at a cost which has been requested would essentially cut the hourly rate producers are able to pay themselves for the time they put into growing their crops. 

Some producers have indicated that this year’s price offer would see them working at an hourly rate that is below the minimum wage.his hardly passes any sort of pub test around price when only 11c from a $5 large serve of fries at McDonald’s is returned to the producer who grew the potatoes.

Growers are only asking for this to increase to 12c for a $5 serve to ensure they can pay themselves correctly, invest in new equipment that drives efficiency and support their local communities.

In an interconnected global supply chain, it is no longer ethical for major corporations to claim that responsibility lies elsewhere or with the middleman to justify their actions. 

All parties have a duty to understand and uphold their ethical obligations. A 1960s attitude of take or leave it is no longer acceptable.