‘Crying in the freezer every day’: When apprenticeships go awry

Key points

• The Victorian government will crack down on the apprenticeship regulator.
• A report has found bullying, harassment and underpayment of apprentices has increased.
• The number of apprenticeships rebounded last year after eight years of declines. 
• The report said employers should be held accountable for the bad on-the-job experiences of their apprentice.

Every day before work Alia De Savery was so anxious she would vomit.

An apprentice at an inner-city restaurant and tafe student, De Savery said she was underpaid and taken advantage of. She’s now part of a campaign calling for an overhaul of apprenticeships.

After her personal experience, Alia De Savery says the apprenticeship system needs to be overhauled.

“I thought it would be a three-year learn-on-the-job model; you supplemented it with tafe, you were supported. I knew it would be hard, but I thought it would be reasonable,” De Savery said.

Instead, she said she was working 60-hour weeks and paid a “predatory” junior apprentice wage of $12.12 an hour. Aged 18, she was barely able to afford rent and food.

De Savery worked at three restaurants during her apprenticeship and left her last workplace in December 2020.

“I was crying in the freezer every day and I couldn’t do it to myself anymore,” she said.

The Victorian government will launch a crackdown on the regulator, the Victorian Registration and Qualifications Authority (VRQA), in response to a report that found bullying, harassment, and unpaid wages were on the rise for Victorian apprentices, and few knew where to turn for help.

The government will also convene a roundtable to hear directly from apprentices, and help deliver workers’ rights training at tafes.

“We are issuing a new statement of expectations for the Victorian Registration and Qualifications Authority – making sure they are in no doubt of their responsibility to support Victorian apprentices and trainees to have the best training experiences,” a government spokesman said.

The report, by progressive think tank the McKell Institute of Victoria, said employers should be held accountable when their apprentices had bad on-the-job experiences, and if they breached safety laws their authority to hire apprentices should be revoked.

Victorian apprenticeship completion rates are below the national average, the report notes.

The report also called for the VRQA to be stripped of its responsibility for monitoring apprenticeships because in 2018-19 only 1.2 per cent of apprentices were visited by field services staff at work and few apprentices were aware of its role or made complaints to it.

Young Workers Centre director Felicity Sowerbutts said the mistreatment and exploitation of apprentices was “systematic” and across all sectors, with “little to no vetting” or regulation of employers.

“Right now, it’s easier to hire an apprentice than hire a car, and these are young lives and people’s future at stake,” she said.

Sowerbutts said the state government should move powers away from the VRQA and instead set up a standalone agency to regulate apprenticeships or a co-regulated model between Wage Inspectorate Victoria and Apprenticeships Victoria.

“There is also no system in place to identify or punish repeat offenders who mistreat their apprentices or commit wage theft, and we know that employers are churning through one employee after another,” Sowerbutts said.

Apprenticeships, which combine on-the-job training with off-the-job learning, rebounded in 2021 after years of declining participation. Most apprentices are employed in construction, hospitality, employment services, automotive and the hair-and-beauty industries.

“More than half of all Victorian apprentices are under 25, and young people in general are more vulnerable to workplace exploitation,” the McKell Institute report noted.

De Savery, now 21, completed her tafe course but no longer wants to be a full-time chef. Instead, she works as a waiter and bartender.

She said apprentice support services did little for her, and at the time of her troubles she was unaware the Victorian Registration and Qualifications Authority existed.

She said restaurants got tax breaks for taking on apprentices but did nothing for them.

“I really think it’s the whole system. It needs to be ripped apart and fixed. I don’t think another committee is going to fix it, it needs to be changed,” she said.

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