A Sydney business has been forced to back-pay $13k and apologise to underpaid worker on social media   

Yahoo Finance5 July 2019


A Sydney horticulture labour-hire company has been ordered to back-pay an underpaid Chinese employee nearly $13,000 and apologise to her on social media.

Sydney-based Cherries Farm Employment Agency and its director Hsin-Jung Hsieh, of Chinese background, admitted to underpaying the employee – a Chinese national aged in her late 20s in Australia on a student visa – a sum of $12,933 between July 2017 and April 2018.

Inspectors from the Fair Work Ombudsman discovered Cherries Farm was paying the student cash-in-hand at a rate of $15 per hour.

It falls short of the gross hourly payments of $23.51 at base rate, up to $35.27 on Saturdays, and up to $47.02 for overtime under the Food, Beverage and Tobacco Manufacturing Award.

Cherries Farm was also found to have created false or misleading records to cover up the cash payments.   

The employer’s conduct was an attempt to get around paying lawful rates, according to Fair Work Ombudsman Sandra Parker, and paying less than what employees are entitled to is illegal.

“We won’t hesitate to take action when we see this type of conduct,” she said.

Such arrangements take advantage of potentially vulnerable workers who might be international students or migrant workers that aren’t aware of their Australian workplace rights.
What the company was ordered to do

Cherries Farm has entered into an ‘enforceable undertaking’, which is a binding agreement with the FWO to change its business practices to ensure it complies with Australia’s workplace laws in the long term.

The company will also have to engage independent auditors to check whether other employees across the business have been receiving correct entitlements, with the audits to take place in 2019 and 2020.

Cherries Farm has also been ordered to issue the worker an apology over its social media channels, and will pay a contrition payment of $5,000 to the Commonwealth Government’s Consolidated Revenue Fund.


More information about the horticulture sector is available at fairwork.gov.au/horticulture.

If you’re reluctant to ask for help for fear of having your visa cancelled, don’t – the FWO has an agreement with the Department of Home Affairs that will prevent this from happening.

Make an anonymous report to the Fair Work Ombudsman through its website, or call their infoline at 13 13 94.