Door-to-door sales people join $100m class action

Telecommunications firm Optus is among those linked with the class action. Photo / AAP

Thousands of Australian door-to-door sales people are expected to join a A$100 million dollar class action over wage theft and bullying while working for some of the nation's biggest companies.

The class action, being launched on Tuesday, names four sales contractors - Aida, Credico, Global Interactive and the PCA Group - which represented some of Australia's biggest companies and charities including Foxtel, Telstra, Optus, AGL and The Red Cross.

It claims some workers were making as little as A$3.67 an hour selling products door-to-door or in shopping malls.

"The action will help expose the practice of sham contracting, which is estimated to impact on almost 345,000 Australians in any one calendar year, according to an analysis of ABS data," Godfrey Moase from the National Union of Workers said in a statement on Monday.

It's estimated 5000 people will join the action backed by the NUW and Chamberlains Law Firm.

"This will be Australia's first class action to simultaneously pursue the marketing company and also take aim at clients, directors and advisors that knew about the exploitation but decided to profit anyway," Rory Markham from Chamberlains Law Firm said in a statement.

Some of the claimants say that they went weeks without pay and were isolated from friends and family because they were constantly moving around Australia and had no fixed address.

The NUW said for people to join the action, they need to be paid up members of the union but "further special consideration will be given to claimants in particularly vulnerable situations".

It comes in the wake of a major A$85 million class action against Appco, which is alleged to have engaged in sham contracting.