The Fair Work Ombudsman has recovered $404,721 in wages for 623 underpaid workers after investigating employers in Brisbane’s food precincts.
Fair Work Inspectors investigated 77 businesses across a range of suburbs, including Brisbane CBD, South Brisbane, Fortitude Valley and Sunnybank. They found 75 per cent of businesses had breached workplace laws.
Some news outlets might create an interesting News Headline like this:
Brisbane: 75% of businesses breached workplace laws.
That would make it sound really bad.
But, the facts of the full story would make that headline look very irresponsible.
The Fair Work Ombudsman received complaints about 77 businesses in food precincts around Brisbane CBD, South Brisbane, Fortitude Valley and Sunnybank.
They found that 58 (75%) of those businesses had breached workplace laws. The investigation of the other 19 businesses did not find any legal issues.
Underpaid Wages.
- 53 of the 58 had underpaid their workers.
- 37 of these had underpaid the minimum hourly rate of pay.
- 40 of these failed to pay penalty rates or casual loading.
Recording Issues.
- 26 of the 58 had failed to meet pay slip and record-keeping requirements.
- 19 of that 26 breached pay slip laws.