Hobart restaurant paid worker $2.45 an hour
The Fair Work Ombudsman is looking into allegations an international student was paid as little as $2.45 an hour while working at a Hobart restaurant.
The owner-operators of the now-closed Anatolia Turkish restaurant in North Hobart are now facing legal action for allegedly underpaying four workers.
One of them, Oya Waechter allegedly underpaid the employees a total of $31,452.
Her husband, Peter Waechter, will also appear in the Federal Circuit Court for the hearing into his alleged involvement in some contraventions.
The owners face penalties of up to $10,800 for each contravention. That’s in addition to backpaying the workers in full.
The four workers in the case are a teenage Australian waitress, an apprentice cook in her 60s, a food-and-beverage attendant from Malaysia and a kitchen attendant from Pakistan.
They contacted the Fair Work Ombudsman about the matter.
The main allegation is that wages were often paid late, or not at all. Overtime rates, casual loadings and penalty rates for weekend and public holiday work were allegedly often not paid.
Specifically, the Pakistani student was allegedly paid $250 for 102 hours of work — an effective hourly rate of $2.45. In effect, the student was short-changed $2315. The apprentice cook was allegedly underpaid $3885, the teenage waitress was underpaid $451.77 and the Malaysian beverage attendant receiving hourly rates ranging from $10.09 to $25.34 over a 12-month period, in effect short changing that worker $24,800.
Acting Fair Work Ombudsman Kristen Hannah said legal action had been taken against the restaurant because the breaches of the rules were just so flagrant.
“Allegations involving vulnerable workers receiving pay rates that equate to as little as $2.45 an hour warrant the use of the most serious enforcement tools at our disposal,” Ms Hannah told the Hobart Mercury.
“We also treat cases involving underpayment of overseas workers particularly seriously because we are conscious that they can be vulnerable because of a lack of awareness of their entitlements, language barriers and a reluctance to complain.”
by Leon Gettler, November 17th 2017
