Fowl play: Red Rooster fined for child employment breaches

The chickens have come home to roost for Red Rooster Wodonga, which has been caught breaching numerous child employment laws, resulting in huge fines.

Red Rooster Wodonga pleaded guilty to a total of 29 breaches of Victoria’s child employment laws, culminating in $5,500 dollars’ worth of fines and has been ordered to pay $4,000 in costs in the Melbourne Magistrates Court.

The investigation began in August 2022 by Wage Inspectorate Victoria, the state’s child employment regulator, after receiving a tip-off from the community alleging the business was employing children under the age of 15 without the correct permits.

Robert Hortle, the commissioner of Wage Inspectorate Victoria, explained that the community expected a safe working environment for kids as it is usually a lot of their first-time jobs.

“Red Rooster Wodonga is the type of business where many kids get their first job, so the community rightly expects it to have a strong focus on creating a safe workplace for kids, which is what child employment laws help ensure,” said Mr Hortle.

Red Rooster Wodonga pleaded guilty to a number of charges, which included:

• Employing 10 children under the age of 15 without a permit on 154 occasions.
• Failing to ensure the children were supervised by someone with a Working with Children Clearance on 154 occasions.
• Employing children for more hours than they are permitted to work on 12 occasions.
• Employing children later than 9pm on three occasions.

Each of these offences took place between 9 April 2022 and 24 September 2022. His Honour, the magistrate, Timothy Gattuso, did not record a conviction, noting that the offence was inadvertent or negligent, not deliberately non-compliant.

However, His Honour noted that the Red Rooster franchise is at fault as they provided the franchisee with a pack containing incorrect information that was not accurate of Victoria’s child employment laws. He noted that the onus is still on the franchisee, although that is blatant management malpractice from Red Rooster by providing them with inaccurate law compliance packages.

“The magistrate referred to information provided by the franchisor which contained incorrect information about Victoria’s child employment laws. We’re looking to franchisors, particularly large, well-resourced corporations, to show leadership in this space and ensure their franchisees comply with child employment laws,” said Mr Hortle.

This is not an isolated incident, stated Mr Hortle: “The Wage Inspectorate took 11 businesses to court last year over alleged child employment breaches, and we saw businesses convicted and fined up to $10,000.”

“The greatest risk of flouting child employment laws is a kid getting hurt in the workplace, but this outcome shows there are financial and reputational risks too.”

Tightknit communities are trying to eliminate the chance of a child being injured at the workplace, and in this case, especially, the community came to the rescue by reporting the issues.

“Businesses shouldn’t expect to get away with breaking child employment laws – community members look out for the wellbeing of kids and will tip us off when they see something of concern,” said Mr Hortle.

Businesses that tend to ignore these kinds of stringent laws are walking on eggshells, as the repercussions are severe. The responsibility, however, that is on these large corporate franchises is important as they must deliver accurate information packages to their franchisees so that these problems do not arise and no child is injured or exploited in the workplace.