All Chinese store owners in Australia pay attention! Recently, many shops have been fined for withholding employees' wages! Fine up to nearly $ two hundred thousand! And the bosses are not just withholding their wages, they are really painstaking in order to pay less! There's a lot of patterns! But you've got to be careful with these bosses!
Fair Work moves frequently recently. The Chinese boss has been fined nearly two hundred thousand!
According to the Brisbane Times, (Dong Zhao, (Zhao Dong) runs a Pizza Hut Upper Coomera store on Queensland's Gold Coast.
Vijan, a 20-something Indian, is an employee of a store hired by Zhao Dong.
Zhao Dongke does not admit that he is an employee in the shop! He defined his relationship with Vijan as a partnership!
Vijan is an independent contractor who contracts all the takeout business at his pizza store!
What good is that? The good thing is saving money! What pension, subsidy! Or vacation Double Pay! There's no need to pay!
If you think of Vijan as one of its employees, Vijan will be paid at least A $20.36 an hour, with an hourly salary of up to A $40.72 for overtime and public holidays. The pension, subsidies, and the cost of each meal delivery add up to seven, eight, and Vijan was deducted by Zhao Dong of $6248.41 in just six months from his job at a pizza shop.
You know, Zhao Dong paid Vijan less than $16 an hour. More than that, send pizza Vijan to use their own car, and all the car wear and tear, such as: change tires, insurance and so on is to pay their own!
And according to the survey of Fair Work staff: it is certain that Vijan is actually Zhao Dong's employee, first Vijan does not operate his own food delivery company, and second, he is completely under the supervision of Zhao Dong at work.
Judge Michael Jarrett said Vijan, a low-skilled visa worker who completed only one secondary education, recently arrived in Australia, needed work to support his family's living expenses and his wife's academic expenses.
And this is less than 16% of the salary is also from Vijan, the first time he salary an hour only $12 an hour! After tough negotiations with his boss, he raised his salary to $16 an hour!
Vijan also mistakenly believes that extending working hours is a compensation for low wages!
And because wages are too low, Vijan has had a hard time! And had to borrow $20,000 from his father! He said: this is really shameful in our place! He has been anxious and nervous about his bank balances, sometimes frustrated and humiliated.
After Fair Work's detailed investigation: Mr. Zhao and his company have broken the law, he does not have employment records and provides Fair Work staff with false employment records.
Judge Jarrett said: it is a sinister practice to cover up the employer's misconduct by creating and providing false documents and exacerbating the practice of not keeping proper records and not providing payroll to employees.
The federal itinerant court has handed down a verdict: Zhao Dong was fined $36,699 and the company was fined A $ one hundred and eighty thousand. Vijan received all the withheld wages.
Of course, more than one family got punished! The "stingy" company caught, of course, was more than the one above, but it was unexpected that even big companies like Foodora were involved.
Foodora was also punished.
Not long ago, Foodora, one of Australia's largest takeaway companies, was fined tens of thousands of Australian dollars by the federal government for withholding employees' wages and using illegal rules.
In 2015 and 2016, Foodora reportedly hired three full-time employees as independent contractors: two 19-year-old Melbourne takeout riders and a 30-year-old Indian driver.
According to Fair Work, Foodora hired the employees as contract workers, but they actually worked as full-time employees. "delivering takeout at restaurants or fast-food restaurants is nothing new," said Natalie James, a Fwo staff member. Nor is it a test to check whether employees should be paid full-time wages. Court continues to discover that there are many independent contractors in fact not worthy of their names. "
In just four weeks, the workers had been underpaid $1620, while Foodora would have paid a $54000 fine.
Late last month, ENA, another Greek restaurant owned by George Pezaros, founder of Melbourne's Degani Coffee, was sued by FWO for being underpaid and using cash to pay employees.
Investigators at ENA found their accounts from November to December 2017, showing that ENA divided employees' salaries into two parts: "Books" and "Cash," some of which were paid by legal means and the other by cash.
Half of the employees in the entire restaurant are paid in cash for salary. One employee has an hourly salary of A $16, a full A $8 less than the minimum salary set by law. In other words, ENA pays as much as $75000 a year in salary less than its employees, excluding what restaurants are supposed to pay to the Australian Inland Revenue Authority on their behalf.
Not only ENA, Melbourne, which pays low wages and does not pay for benefits such as Super for its employees, are famous chefs Shannon Bennett's Vue de monde,Chin and Barry cafe, among others. These restaurants are now surveyed by FWO.
Jess Walsh, secretary-general of VOA {United Voice}, said: "it's risky to deduct employees' wages, and it's not exaggerating that most employers are doing that right now. We watched a large number of well-known companies being exposed to withholding employees' wages, but at the same time, we also saw a large number of employees fighting back. "
Conclusion:
Although do not want to admit, but many foreign students in the job will encounter this situation! Don't be afraid when you meet, say it bravely! There's an institution called International Students Work Rights Legal Service! And Fair work! Check it out!
Give the boss who withheld your money a good shot!