A Melbourne food wholesaler has been fined $85,000 for underpaying its migrant and overseas workers with individual underpayments ranging between $125 and $10,218.
Quality Food World, which operates from a warehouse in Mordialloc, Victoria, admitted it underpaid 46 employees by $149,137.
The penalty, imposed in the Federal Circuit Court, is the result of an investigation and legal action by the Fair Work Ombudsman.
The employees were mostly migrants and visa holders from non-English speaking backgrounds who performed production and packaging duties.
They were underpaid for work performed between October 2007 and March 2011.
The employees were variously underpaid their minimum hourly rates, public holiday pay, overtime rates and annual leave entitlements. Record-keeping laws were also breached.
Fair Work inspectors investigated the wholesaler following suggestions from former employees that the business might have compliance issues.
Quality Food World has now back-paid all its workers, and will pay entitlements owing to workers it cannot find into the Fair Work Ombudsman’s unclaimed wages fund.
The wholesaler has also implemented a range of improvements to its employment practices.
Handing down his decision, Judge Grant Riethmuller said the company had shown “either wilful blindness or recklessness” with regard to its obligations and there had been a “systemic failure to comply with the law”.
Judge Riethmuller said the underpayments occurred despite the fact the Fair Work Ombudsman put the company on notice in response to complaints from workers dating back to 2007.
The judge dismissed the company’s submission that it deserved credit for employing workers who may not have been able to gain other employment.
Most of the employees were from non-English speaking backgrounds, new to Australia, and had limited knowledge of the rights and protections afforded to them under Australian workplace laws.
