SHEARERS will continue to work for poverty wages in unsafe shearing sheds across the country until the Commonwealth Government imposes a licensing regime on all labour hire companies operating in regional Australia the union which represents shearers, the Australian Workers’ Union (AWU) recently claimed.

A new resolution passed at the AWU’s National Conference held in Perth has called on the federal government to step in with a new national licensing and enforcement body after widespread reports of labour exploitation in shearing sheds across the country.