Fair Work Ombudsman vows to pursue penalties for 'entirely unacceptable' underpayments
A vegetable farm in Victoria is facing legal action for allegedly underpaying 28 migrant workers more than $645,000 across four years.
The Fair Work Ombudsman (FWO) commenced the legal action after an investigation that discovered the employees were underpaid a total of $645,567, including $8,964 in unlawful deductions from their wages, between December 2019 and December 2023.
"The alleged underpayments of migrant workers by Bulmer Farms across four years was entirely unacceptable, and we will be pursuing penalties to hold the company to account," said Fair Work Ombudsman Anna Booth.
Alleged underpayment breaches
The impacted migrant workers were from Kiribati, Timor Leste, and the Solomon Islands, who were under the Pacific Australia Labour Mobility (PALM) scheme.
The FWO's probe alleges that the employees were paid flat amounts ranging from $884 to $1,105 per week for a 38-hour work week, despite being required to work more than those hours.
For seven per cent of the cases, workers were allegedly required to work more than 50 hours per week.
"Employees must be paid for every hour they work," Booth said. "We've been calling this issue out for years – the law demands that workers are paid for the actual hours they work and employers cannot rely on default annualised salary-based payments if they have not factored in all entitlements for any extra hours worked."
"Employers engaging in this conduct are at high risk of facing legal action in addition to being left with a substantial back-payment bill."
Around 40% of the overall underpayment to workers was related to entitlements to overtime rates, according to the FWO.
It also alleged that the Victoria farm underpaid various leave entitlements, public holiday pay and minimum-engagement pay, and made unlawful deductions from wages relating to airfares, accommodation, and health insurance.
The FWO further accused the farm of violating record-keeping and payslip laws
The farm has conducted an internal review during the FWO's investigation, according to the workplace regulator.
It has since made payments of $42,189 to the impacted workers, but the FWO is seeking court orders to require the company to rectify the underpayments in full, plus interest and superannuation.
