A small business owner will face court action for allegedly paying young foreign workers in Darwin less than $5 an hour and failing to co-operate with the Fair Work Ombudsman.
Scott Aeron Davenport, who owns Scott’s painting Service, is alleged to have paid three French nationals just $450 for 13 days work at an hourly rate of between $4.62 and $4.71.
A fourth French worker was allegedly paid $300 for five days work, amounting to an effective hourly rate of $11.54.
The workers, aged between 21 and 25, were in Australia on 417 working holiday visas and the FWO alleges they were underpaid for work completed at the height of Summer between December 2013 and January 2014.
The French nationals were employed by Mr Davenport as labourers and painters at a local college, and were entitled to more than $22 an hour in normal time and more than $38 on weekends.
In total, the FWO alleges the workers were underpaid a total of $5940 with the individual underpayments ranging from $451 to $1889.
Following an initial investigation, the FWO has since alleged that Mr Davenport failed to make the necessary back-payments or produce employment documents when required. Mr Davenport faces penalties of $10, 200 per breach with a directions hearing scheduled for the Federal Circuit Court in Darwin next month.
In a separate case, an Adelaide company was last week fined $196,000 in the Federal Court following action brought by the FWO after it underpaid 46 employees more than $2.5 million.
The penalty handed down by Justice John Mansfield was against Lifestyle SA Pty Ltd, a company which manages a network of retirement villages across Adelaide. The FWO commenced legal action against the company in mid 2012 with Justice Mansfield finding that eight employees had been underpaid more than $100,000 with the largest underpayment coming in at $264,725. The underpayments occurred between March 2006 and February 2011.
While he found the contraventions were not deliberate the company had nevertheless gained a competitive advantage over its rivals.
“It is important to send a clear signal to the community at large, and specifically to employers, regarding the importance of complying with Australian workplace laws,” he said.
