Media releases

An adult apprentice butcher in Hobart who was paid less than $10 per hour will be back-paid nearly $20,000 by his former employer, following intervention by the Fair Work Ombudsman.

The Fair Work Ombudsman has recovered $31,000 for a Chinese migrant who was underpaid while working at a bottle shop at Bentleigh East, in Melbourne’s south-east.

The operators of a mobile phone retailer who failed to heed warnings to pay employees’ minimum lawful rates have been penalised a total of $23,000 for short-changing an overseas worker at Frankston, in Melbourne.

Fair Work Inspectors have undertaken 50 field audits in Ballarat this week and plan to audit a further 150 businesses in the regional Victorian town in coming months as part of a new campaign.

A national Inquiry into exploitation of overseas workers on Australian farms has led to the Fair Work Ombudsman launching legal action against a Queensland labour-hire operator for allegedly underpaying overseas workers more than $60,000.

A Queensland building and construction company and its director are facing court over allegations they short-changed two young apprentices more than $32,000.

The operators of a Queensland tavern have been penalised a total of $19,500 for causing “significant detriment” to a manager by short-changing her thousands of dollars.

The Fair Work Ombudsman has recovered almost $9000 for an overseas worker who worked at a travel agency in Cairns over a period of just four months.

The Maritime Union of Australia (MUA) is facing legal action after the Fair Work Ombudsman filed court proceedings alleging the union organised a campaign of unlawful industrial action, leading to up to nearly 100 workers withdrawing labour from shipping terminals in Sydney and Brisbane.

A Taiwanese company that last year back-paid almost $900,000 to a team of overseas workers it brought to Australia has now been penalised in Court for ignoring a demand to make further back-payments to two overseas workers it paid less than $5 an hour.