On the day that the University of Adelaide appointed its new vice-chancellor, Peter Hoj, a video went viral of an international student being slapped in the face by her boss in Adelaide’s Chinatown this week. What had she done to incite this violence? She had had the audacity to ask for her pay of $10 an hour. Never mind that this is well below the minimum wage – she just wanted to be paid the going rate for international students.
A screenshot from Twitter video shows the boss slapping his female employee, an international student. Credit:Twitter
Quite rightly, Professor Hoj, like all of Australia’s G08 vice-chancellors, identify getting international students back to our universities as key to the survival of the sector. However, it is essential that universities evolve in their understanding of the contribution and welfare of international students.
There is now a wealth of evidence to demonstrate that international students have two key aspects to their vulnerability. First, they are vulnerable in terms of their accommodation and living arrangements as there is a lack of affordable, safe housing in our metropolitan cities. Second, international students are vulnerable in the labour market to wage theft and other forms of exploitation.
International students are routinely paid wages much lower than the legal minimum. In a survey of more than 4000 international students, almost a quarter earned less than $12 per hour in their lowest-paid job; 42 per cent earned less than $15, which was still $2.70 below the minimum legal hourly rate at the time of the survey.