$58k in underpayments recovered from ‘cheap eats’ venues

The Fair Work Ombudsman (FWO) has recovered more than $58,000 for 121 underpaid food outlet employees in south-east Melbourne.

Surprise inspections from the FWO have resulted in more underpaid workers gaining their owed compensation. These underpayments were discovered following regulatory inspections of 32 food businesses, mostly “cheap eats” venues in Bentleigh, Bentleigh East, Carnegie, Glen Huntly, Caulfield, Caulfield East, Elsternwick and Clayton.

Victorian businesses have been under the microscope for the past couple of months in regards to employee underpayments. As previously reported on HR Leader, very recently, a baby and children’s retailer based in Melbourne was investigated by the FWO for underpayments, to which they were penalised $41,250.

Another incident that occurred in the Garden State recently saw the Wage Inspectorate Victoria assist workers who weren’t paid their long service leave entitlements. More than $750,000 was recovered for the workers in this case, which included big-time corporations like Optus and Woolworths.

“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.

“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.

“We are committed to working with these sectors to promote and ensure compliance.”

More than $1.2 million has been recovered for workers in the fast-food, restaurants, and café sector in Melbourne alone, highlighting the rampant underpayments occurring in the area.

In this case, the FWO, after being tipped off by numerous reports from a range of resources, found that 26 businesses (81 per cent) had breached workplace laws.

The 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).

“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,” Booth said.

The highest amount recovered from one of the businesses targeted throughout this investigation was $13,071 for four casual fast-food workers who were paid flat rates. These rates were below the award minimum for all hours worked.

The aftermath of these investigations resulted in the FWO issuing 22 compliance notices and was able to recover the $58,391 for 121 employees.