Kayce

end of january 14 before his time is up

I thought I'd update this as nothing has changed..... Still multiple issues with the employer and some of the colleagues, not quite so bad as some of the worst offenders have moved on but still bad enough that the OH had his chin split a few weeks ago after one of the pot heads threw a piece of wood at him (just messing apparently). OH asked to fill out an incident report but nobody had time to go through it with him.... We're now into our 19th month with the sponsor and my OH is on his second week of sick leave, he's depressed/miserable but we have no option to change anything as the threat of a visa cancellation and the long flight back to the UK is constantly in the background. We're still documenting everything, have been to worksafe and fair work but nothing has come of it. Just keep plodding on I suppose

OK, we are still having issues with the employer but reluctant to jeopardise our visa by walking out. We have emailed immi and phoned them several times over the last few months and this is the response we received today Thank you for your email regarding employee obligations under the Regional Sponsored Migration Scheme (RSMS). Please consider the following information. Your Obligations : Under RSMS you must meet the following obligations.· commence employment within six months of arriving in Australia or within six months of the visa grant if they are already in Australia · remain employed in the nominated position in the regional area for at least two years. Permanent residents in Australia have no condition on their visa that compels them to work for a particular employer. Therefore, there is no impediment to them commencing work with another employer other than their nominating employer. However, as a two-year contract was a prerequisite for the grant of your RSMS visa, if you cease work within two years of the grant of your visa it will mean that the department will need to consider whether or not to cancel your visa, and an assessment will need to be made about whether you have made a genuine effort to complete the two-year contract. As part of this assessment, consideration will be given to factors such as the reasons why you have ceased employment and events outside your control. If a determination is made that you did not make a genuine effort, the department will contact you and advise that consideration is being given to the cancellation of your visa. You would then have the opportunity to advise the department why your visa should not be cancelled. The department cannot pre-assess whether your visa could be cancelled and so the assessment of the factors as mentioned above can only be made after the event of your cessation of employment. If you cease employment with your employer within the 2 year obligation you must notify this department. What does anyone make of this?

I'm just bumping this incase there's someone around who has direct experience of this issue. Thanks K.

Thanks for the replies guys! Rupert, I did mean to say that new apps aren't being taken for this visa anymore, I know that they are continuing to process applications lodged before the start of this financial year, I am feeling wary about approaching our initial migrant agent as I'm not sure if he is helping the employer to sponsor more brits to come into the country. Eera, I have considered this but I worry that the blame will be pointed at my OH anyway as the rest are happy enough while the employer turns a blind eye! If we were sure of our position I would tell him to walk out tomorrow, but the last thing we want to do is leave Australia!

Hi, We've been in Australia for 7 months now and we are absolutely loving the lifestyle, however we do seem to have a (big) problem, which is concerning the job my OH is sponsored for. He has been in the position for almost 7 months, started pretty much as soon as we got here, at first he found the job ok, it doesn't actually seem to be a job for a skilled worker (the reason we were able to get the 119 visa), but we are just happy to be here, he can live with the job being a bit rubbish in the meantime! The problems are some of the people he is working with, in the factory he is the only skilled worker, and this seems to have caused an issue for one particular bloke who has taken against my OH, to date he has sworn at him, called him a thick b*stard (amongst other things), and generally talks him down to the other members of staff, on one occasion he threw a piece of wood at my OH resulting in a gash to his hand (would have been his face if he hadn't put his hand up to stop it). This bloke likes to smoke cannabis on a regular basis, including during the work day, he also supplies several of the other members of staff with a 'smoke' during the day. The boss/sponsor is more than aware of the drug use in the workplace, but turns a blind eye to it as he is paying a low wage and knows that if he says anything the blokes will just leave and find another job elsewhere, even to the point when one of the members of staff sent a text message to the boss rather than a colleague about needing a 'cone' the next day it was completely ignored. The machinery in the factory is dangerous, the guard rails don't work and there is no extraction for the dust (which is legally required), its not a good situation. We went to see immigration 3 months ago, we spoke to a lovely lady who noted our concerns and said that immigration would understand if we felt it was not possible to carry on in this position, we explained to her that our children are all settled in school and that I have found a full time job that I enjoy, we don't want to lose all that we've achieved and return to the UK, also that it pretty much used up all our savings getting here in the first place would put us at a major disadvantage financially (having given up jobs etc to get here), she said that it was fine and that as long as my OH continued to work in the regional area, in the same trade he was brought over here for, than Immi would be satisfied. Fast forward to this week, my OH has tried to continue with the employer, but things are going bad to worse, he is being messed around, given all of the **** tasks to do and he said that there seems to be a playground mentality from some of the other members of staff (some of them ignore him, take the p*ss out of him, these are all the friends of the one who took against him originally). He has taken 3 days off sick this week as he simply couldn't face it. We went to immi again to speak to them and get some reassurance with regards to our visa not being cancelled, only to be told that since the RSMS 119 visa no longer exists, that they can't help us and that we must speak to someone in the processing area. We called the number they told us to, spoke to 2 different people. The first said that our visa would be cancelled if he left his position as we hadn't asked DEEWR for any help, and did not have documented evidence to prove that he is trying to make his position better in the workplace, the second said that if he left his job the visa would be cancelled, and that he also should try to not upset his boss by taking time off work as if he upset him he might sack him, and then the visa would be cancelled. When I asked the first person why her advice was completely different to the person we spoke to face to face at immigration, she said that the person we spoke to mustn't have known what she was talking about. When we asked the second person if that meant he was stuck working in an unsafe working environment with people who were awful to him, he said 'pretty much'. following this we went to DEEWR, who told us that it wasn't the sort of thing they would get involved with, and to phone fair work Australia, when we spoke to them their only advice was that if my OH left his job he would only need to give one weeks notice, but probably best to give two.... Does anyone have any advice on what to do when things aren't working out with your employer?? We don't want to leave Australia, we don't even want to leave the regional area were in (we are quite happy here), I know that the clause is that you stay in the nominated position for two years so are there any options for us other than suck it up, or go home?