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They Can't Wait For Wage Theft To Be Criminalised (Read 202 times)
whiteknight
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They Can't Wait For Wage Theft To Be Criminalised
Aug 16th, 2019 at 4:19am
 
I can't wait for wage theft to be criminalised':
14 August 2019
ABC News

After 18 months working at a Sunshine Coast restaurant while still at school, Max Fox decided to move on to another job.

"When I switched jobs and my pay rate practically doubled ... I went, hmm, something's amiss here."

Max, now 22, said he wasn't being paid the correct award, given one of his duties was to serve alcohol.   Sad

He calculated his lost wages as more than $7,000 and reached out to his former employer.


"I initially sent a letter of concern to my employer after being on the phone to Fair Work a couple of times.

"I got a response the next day from their lawyer."

"To get a response straight away, not from the people that I had been speaking to at the restaurant, not from management, but from the legal team, that was pretty scary."

Max is still in negotiations with his former employer after seeking help through the Young Workers Hub, a Brisbane based initiative.
Workers, doin' it for themselves

7-Eleven, Pizza Hut, George Calombaris' restaurant empire, and now with an investigation into Subway, the ever-growing list of employers facing underpayment scandals goes on.

The issue of wage theft is by no means new, but while workers wait for laws criminalising wage theft to be introduced, many are forced to take matters into their own hands.

Imogen Barker is a co-director of the Youth Workers Hub, a "campaigning, educating and advisory group for young workers, by young workers.

She says the scale of the issue is alarming.

"We're getting through about one [case] a week, people coming to us being underpaid, or just not having any idea what they should be getting paid or how to be treated at work."

"A lot of people and young workers in particular are in insecure work situations, either through labor hire, or they're casual.

That means that if they were to say, 'hey, I'm being underpaid', there's the potential you're not going to get a shift tomorrow or next week.


In Queensland, a parliamentary report released this year estimated more than 400,000 workers in the state weren't receiving their full wages.

A federal inquiry in 2017 has cited a nationwide estimate that one in two hospitality workers are being illegally paid, 'with similar figures available for the retail, beauty and fast food sectors.'

21-year-old Sulu Feagiai still works at a food manufacturing company in Brisbane she said underpaid her $13,000 over several years.   Sad

"I support my family, .. I'm kind of like the right hand to my parents because they're both unemployed, Sulu said.

"I do have four little siblings, and I'm trying to help them out with their school fees and trying to provide for them ... [the money] would have helped out a lot."

"The only reason why I'm still [at the company] at the moment is that it's really hard to find jobs in other areas, especially young people like us."

After working with the youth hub, she's now being paid at the proper rate for her position.
So what's being done?



Back in February, Queensland's industrial relations minister urged the Federal Government to take action to address wage theft, after a parliamentary report recommended making wage theft a criminal offence.

The country's Attorney General, Christian Porter, said it was clear that 'more serious penalties reserved for the most serious types of offending' were needed.

"Where people repeat offend with underpayment; they do so knowingly and in very large amounts - obviously, to the extraordinary disadvantage of their workers," he said.

"I will be consulting with stakeholders across the industrial relations landscape over coming months and look forward to hearing from them on any issues they may raise."

Max said he'd welcome the criminalisation of wage theft.

"It's certainly out of balance, the way the current system works in trying to recover this as a civil debt as opposed to if I'd put my hand in the till and taken out seven grand, that would be a criminal offense,"

"For my employers to do it over the course of a year and a half, that's all A-OK.

I'm not the first and I'm certainly not going to be the last so I can't wait for wage theft to be criminalized nationwide.

After Queensland's parliamentary report other recommendations have been taken on board, like providing better information and a simple, low-cost way of recovering wages.

18-year-old international student Andreas Lee said easier access to clear information would have helped him.

"I skipped a few meals a week, because I needed to save money because I wasn't getting paid enough," Andreas said.

"I was getting paid $10 an hour ... I quit after a month after I realised it was not right."
I think I'm being underpaid ... what should I do next?   Sad

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