AUSTRALIA | Melbourne has been the latest city for the Fair Work Ombudsman to target, uncovering underpaid staff at food outlets.
The Fair Work Ombudsman has recovered more than AUD $58,000 for 121 underpaid food outlet employees in south-east Melbourne, following surprise inspections.
The underpayments were discovered following the regulator’s investigations of 32 food businesses, mostly “cheap eats” venues in Bentleigh, Bentleigh East, Carnegie, Glen Huntly, Caulfield, Caulfield East, Elsternwick and Clayton.
The businesses were targeted based on FWO intelligence from a range of sources, including anonymous reports.
The FWO found 26 businesses (81 per cent) had breached workplace laws.
The most common breaches were underpaying minimum wages for ordinary hours (19 businesses), underpaying various penalty rates (16 businesses), and not keeping accurate time records (eight businesses).
“The high rate of breaches of workplace laws in south-east Melbourne’s fast food, restaurants and cafés sector is disappointing, and consistent with our findings in the sector nationwide,” Fair Work Ombudsman Anna Booth said.
“Employers must follow all wage laws, including paying minimum wages, which have recently increased. Those doing the wrong thing are being found out and held to account. Employers should access our wide range of free online tools and resources to ensure they’re meeting their obligations, or contact the FWO directly for free advice. We want to help businesses in the food sector get it right in the first place.”
Booth confirmed that improving compliance in the fast food, restaurants and cafés sector is a continuing priority for the Fair Work Ombudsman, with the other priority sectors being aged care services, agriculture, building and construction, disability support services, large corporates and universities.
“We are targeting these sectors as they are at significant risk of non-compliance with workplace laws, or have a history of systemic underpayments, or both,” Booth said.
“We are committed to working with these sectors to promote and ensure compliance.”
The highest amount recovered from one of the Melbourne businesses was AUD $13,071 for four casual fast-food workers who were paid flat rates below the award minimum for all hours worked.
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