Victorian Korean fried chicken shop cops nearly $80k in penalties

Former operators of a Victorian Gami Chicken & Beer store were slapped with $76,387 in penalties and back-pay orders by the FWO after it failed to provide worker entitlements.

Vanna Taing and Brandon Bui were former operators at the Gami Southland outlet at Westfield Southland Shopping Centre in Cheltenham, Victoria.

In 2024, the Fair Work Ombudsman (FWO) took the operators to the Federal Circuit and Family Court, where it gave evidence that Taing and Bui were involved in creating false records, failing to keep proper records, and failing to comply with a compliance notice, which required the back-payment of 16 kitchen and wait staff.

Taing and Bui were penalised $15,000 and $12,500 respectively.

In addition, Gary Lai, a former human resources professional for the company, was penalised $4,000 for a breach by creating false records.

In a concluded appeal at the Federal Court, the operators have now been ordered to pay the workers a total of $44,887 in entitlements that were still owing to them.

Among the underpaid staff, two were aged 17 at the time, and several others were visa holders from countries such as Vietnam and Korea.

Surprise audits and further investigations

The store was first investigated by the FWO as part of a string of surprise audits of Gami Chicken & Beer stores across Melbourne, Sydney, and Perth in 2019.

During the investigation, Taing, Bui, and Lai were allegedly found to have been involved in providing false payslips to a Fair Work Inspector – payslips which indicated that three workers were paid higher rates than they actually had been paid.

In 2021, the FWO investigated the restaurant for a second time after it received requests for assistance from Gami Southland workers.

‘Deliberately’ and ‘seriously’ left unpaid

In October 2022, the Fair Work Inspector issued a compliance notice to Taing and Bui after it formed the belief that 16 kitchen and wait staff were not paid any wages and entitlements for work performed over a three-week period before their franchisee licence was terminated in 2021, and the restaurant closed.

The workers were found to have not been granted numerous entitlements owed under the Restaurant Industry Award 2010 and the National Employment Standards of the Fair Work Act, including being underpaid minimum wages, penalty rates, casual loadings, annual leave entitlements and payment-in-lieu-of-notice-of-termination entitlements.

The operators failed to comply with this notice.

Presiding Judge Amanda Mansini found that the failure to comply with the compliance notice was “serious” and “deliberate”.

‘Always unacceptable’

Judge Mansini added that the false records breach was “especially serious in that it was a deliberate attempt to prevent the FWO from discovering any non-compliance with workplace laws and minimum conditions of employment”.

The ombudsman, Anna Booth (pictured), said that employers need to be aware of the strong risk of legal action if they use false records and fail to act on compliance notices.

“When employers use false records to try to thwart our investigations and when compliance notices are not followed, we will continue to take legal action,” Booth said.

She stressed that the use of false records is “always unacceptable,” and that they will be detected by the FWO’s inspectors.

“Employers also need to be aware that taking action to protect young workers and visa holders and improve compliance in the fast food, restaurants and cafés sector are among our top priorities,” Booth concluded.