Backpackers in Need
A few blogs ago (Jobs for the Bjørgs - 9 January) I dissected the casual work crisis many backpackers are suffering this summer. Though I concentrated on the Bondi Beach area, I have no doubt travellers are facing the same discrimination in other parts of the world. Like Mexicans in Trump’s America, Poles in the UK, or most non-English speaking people in Australia, backpackers are fast becoming the most vilified minority anywhere. We are being overlooked for jobs, harassed by “locals” and made to feel unwelcome wherever we go.
If you take my experiences this week as typical for every backpacker currently in Australia and anywhere in the world, it’s clear the maltreatment of backpackers has become an epidemic.
As readers will know, I conducted a CV drop recently and was astounded at the attitude of many café owners in the Bondi area. What I hadn’t counted on was that same attitude percolating its way into other bastions of casual employment.
THE UNSINKABLE SHIP: Much like the Titanic, Bondi Junction's renowned Tea Gardens Hotel is divided into levels. While the Balcony Bar - famed for its views and for serving drinks in real glass cups - attracts the wealthy, the street level bar offers a no less important no frills space for illegal immigrants to unwind after a long day turning manual traffic signs and digging ditches. For their convenience there is a Guzman y Gomez across the road.
For years one could count on Bondi Junction’s “world class” [1] drinking establishment The Tea Gardens to employ one on a casual basis, be it collecting glasses, shepherding the high-vis vest-wearing Irish into the downstairs bar, sweeping up teeth, or compering the pub quiz. The Tea Gardens was as equal opportunity as it got. [2]
Sadly, no longer. As a backpacking everyman, I’ve always eschewed the vista-rich Balcony Bar upstairs [3] in favour of the downstairs one anyway. Mixing it with the humble Irish down there is like potato soup for the soul. Yet for probably the first time ever I did attempt to enter the upstairs bar in order to hand my CV to the bar manager last week; however, I was turned away by a humourless bouncer. Just because I was a lowly backpacker. [4]
The bouncer at the street level bar welcomed me in with open arms of course [5]. If anything, I was overdressed. But another injustice was about to strike. When I handed my CV to the bar manager I was deeply embarrassed (for him) when he asked me to show evidence that I had (a) a valid visa, and (b) that the visa had work rights!
A deeply private person [6] I explained to the manager I was uncomfortable about having to show evidence of my “status” in Australia and that he could definitely trust my word.
“I’ve been living here for the past three years,” I said as way of proof.
“I’m not saying you haven’t,” he protested, scratching nervously at the eczema on his neck while filling the bowls with bar nuts. “It’s just we’ve been in trouble with Immigration before about employing people without work rights.”
DOWNSTAIRS: This image was taken just before the 4pm stampede of fluro-vested workers filled it with shouting, singing and jiggery. The caged area on the left is the most popular place to drink as from there they can keep a sharp eye on the queues over at Guzmen y Gomez so that buying a burrito has minimal impact on their drinking time.
I made a sweeping gesture with my hands at all the beer guzzling Irish folk in their high-vis vests (some of whom were still wearing their hard hats). “Your business relies on illegals.”
The manager gave a futile shrug of his shoulders. “I don’t make the rules,” he said.
“You wouldn’t ask this if I was an Australian citizen.”
“Are you an Australian citizen?”
“Would I need to show evidence if I was?”
He looked down judgementally at my bare feet.
“Yes,” he whimpered.
I left feeling more humiliated than I had the previous week when I realised Le Paris Go would only hire me if I was Nordic and had tits.
Sure, I could easily have presented him with a letter showing my lawful status in Australia and that I definitely could work. But doing so would set a dangerous precedent and no doubt adversely affect other backpackers. Perhaps those who really are illegal but who, quite rightly, see nothing wrong with working or remaining in Australia as long as they can because, in some way, they feel they deserve to. By refusing to bow to these bureaucracy-loving employers’ demands I’m selflessly sacrificing the opportunity to make a cool $13 per hour. [7]
All for the betterment of the backpacking community.
Unfortunately, finding an honest job isn’t our only worry. Further to this employment scandal, backpackers from north to south Bondi are being unfairly targeted by petty locals.
I was doing a brisk trade on Ramsgate Avenue when my operation was shutdown by the police. The reason they gave was that it was illegal to sell alcohol on the street and, more worryingly, that parents believed I’d been selling Glorified Gypsy Moonshine™ to their underage kids. Of course, I’d never knowingly encourage underage drinking – that goes without saying. But if I did, it was an honest mistake. [8]
I have a court appearance in March.
Believe you me, I very much doubt the police would have been called if I weren’t a backpacker.
For a short time only, therefore, I am offering you the rare opportunity to donate money directly to my cause.* Donate now at theglorifiedgypsy.com or email me at theglorifiedgypsy@gmail.com.
[1] Not my words. The words of Seamus and Siobhan O’Brien – a young couple from Cork, who I met outside the Tea Gardens last week. They were taking photos of themselves sloshing pints of beer around outside the entrance and uploading them to social media. As far as I could decipher they’d travelled all the way from Ireland in order to get drunk inside the Tea Gardens (downstairs section, obviously). Every traveller has a story.
[2] Unless you were a high-vis vest wearing Irishman, of course. In may ways the Tea Gardens operates very much like the Titanic: the monied people upstairs; salt of the earth working class plebs downstairs.
[3] The balcony offers sweeping panoramas of Bronte Road, Spring Street, the bus and train station, Bondi Medical Centre and a Guzman y Gomez.
[4] Of course, the bouncer said he’d let me in if I put some shoes on and at least a t-shirt.
[5] Technically, it was a grunt.
[6] Save for my weekly blogs.
[7] Which, as readers know, will go to Chandrakant, my migration agent. He still insists I meet all the criteria for subclass 199 visa.
[8] I mistook the crest on their school blazers for that of an excusive gentleman’s club.
* Any funds raised will go towards backpackers in need, such as those facing unfair court costs.