Media releases

The Fair Work Ombudsman has recovered almost $9000 for a Sri Lankan asylum seeker who was underpaid over a period of just three months at a furniture removalist business in Melbourne.

A major Australian hotel chain has back-paid 1500 of its cleaners a total of $1.9 million after underpaying them as a result of misclassifying them as independent contractors.

A restaurant operator in north-west Tasmania has agreed to reimburse three employees almost $15,000 after failing to pay them during a downturn in business.

A sushi restaurant chain has narrowly avoided legal action for producing false pay records by agreeing to overhaul practices across its outlets and donate $10,000 to a community organisation.

The master franchisor of the Yogurberry frozen yoghurt chain in Australia has been penalised over the exploitation of four Korean workers at one of its Sydney outlets in a precedent-setting Federal Court judgment.

Two Chinese workers were paid as little as $11 an hour at a Muffin Break franchise outlet in Hobart, leading to more than $46,000 in underpayments, an investigation by the Fair Work Ombudsman has found.

A Sydney cleaning operator being penalised more than $11,000 for refusing to back-pay two international students less than $3000 sends a strong warning, according to the Fair Work Ombudsman.

A former Brisbane restaurant operator has been penalised in Court for underpaying an overseas worker more than $5000.

New Online Learning Courses on Workplace Flexibility and Diversity and Discrimination from the Fair Work Ombudsman seek to help small business understand the law.

Persistent underpayment allegations from workers are among the prompts for a new Fair Work Ombudsman campaign in Victoria’s Gippsland region.