A Senate committee is calling for the criminalisation of wage theft to end the “shameful” practice that often targets vulnerable and low-skilled workers. The Senate Economics References Committee, which is led by the Labor party, has released a report detailing the current situation of wage theft in the country and proposing measures to tackle this persisting problem. According to the report, wage theft does not limit to underpaying wages, penalty rates, superannuation, overtime, commissions and entitlements such as sick, annual, or carer leave. It also includes practices such as requiring workers to repay money earned or making unauthorised deductions from employee pay. The committee found that a “vicious cycle of underpayments” was bringing wide impacts upon the economy and pushing wages down across industries. Another finding by the committee was that employers tended to use power imbalance to take advantage of their workers, with victims more likely to be women …