Fair Work Ombudsman says protecting agriculture workers is a priority
NQ Powertrain Pty Ltd., a Queensland company supplying labour to farms in northern Queensland, has been accused of underpaying 87 workers and making “unlawful deductions” from their pay.
The Fair Work Ombudsman (FWO) announced the move in a news release that also underlined the protection of “vulnerable workers” in the agriculture sector as a top priorities for the agency.
The FWO is accusing NQ Powertrain of underpaying the workers by a total of $49,933 between December 2018 and May 2020, according to news release.
The workers were visa holders employed under the Pacific Labour Scheme (PLS) and Seasonal Worker Programme (SWP).
“It is alleged the workers were employed by NQ Powertrain for periods of between one month to about 16 months, and that the company supplied them on an on-hire basis to farms at locations near Cairns, including Innisfail, Tolga, Walkamin, Mareeba, Upper Daradgee and Mourilyan,” the FWO release said.
The workers were visa holders from countries such as Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, and Vanuatu and were assigned to pick, sort, and pack fruits and vegetables and do general labouring and housekeeping tasks on the farms, the FWO release said.
“This sector engages many vulnerable workers, such as visa holders, who may be unaware of their rights or unwilling to speak up,” Fair Work Ombudsman Sandra Parker said in the news release.
“Employers who fail to deliver all their employees’ entitlements – including due to unlawful deductions – will be found out and risk facing penalties,” she said.
Housing costs inflated
The FWO alleges that the underpayments resulted from the deductions to the workers’ pay for accommodation costs which were more than the actual expense of the accommodation. The deductions for accommodation costs were related to a boarding house in Mareeba and a farmhouse in Tolga.
“The Fair Work Ombudsman alleges more than a dozen instances of NQ Powertrain deducting, in total, in excess of $1000 more from a worker’s wages than was required to cover their accommodation costs,” the release stated.
“NQ Powertrain allegedly also made unlawful deductions from workers’ wages for transport costs, and underpaid their Sunday overtime rates, time-off-in-lieu entitlements and minimum-engagement pay, under the Horticulture Award 2010,” it added.
The alleged underpayments to individuals ranged from $17 to $2,041, the agency said.
A hearing is scheduled for 1 December 2022 before the Federal Circuit and Family Court in Brisbane, according to the FWO, which said the company could face fines of up to $63,000 per contravention.
However, the agency noted that the NQ Powertrain has “rectified the alleged underpayments in full” and the company ceased trading early this year.
The FWO announced recently that in its most recent fiscal year it recovered a record-high $532 million for 384,805 underpaid workers in 2021-22.
