Underpaid Korean workers at Sydney sandwich outlets could not afford basic living expenses   

Sydney Morning Herald
May 11 2017

Operators of the Little Vienna sandwich outlets in Sydney have been fined $87,040 for allegedly exploiting 11 Korean workers who were paid as little as $10 per hour and for using false pay records.

One of the adult employees was allegedly underpaid by nearly $30,000.

Sydney man Jae Kwang Kim, who owns and operates six Little Vienna outlets in the Sydney CBD, has been fined $10,880 and his company has received a further penalty of $76,160 in the Federal Circuit Court.

Fair Work Ombudsman Natalie James said she was particularly concerned that Kim and his company deliberately recruited Korean employees by placing job advertisements on a Korean-language website.   

Two of the employees gave evidence that without financial assistance from friends or family, they would not have been able to meet their basic living expenses.

The Fair Work Ombudsman which investigated the fast food outlets found 11 South Korean employees were underpaid a total of $111,781 between December, 2012 and April, 2015.

Ten of the employees were on 417 working holiday visas and one was on a student visa and most of the employees spoke little English.

The employees were allegedly paid $10 an hour for their first two weeks of work, before being paid flat rates of $11 to $13 an hour.      

As casual employees under the Fast Food Industry Award, the adult employees were entitled to $21.21 to $23.15 an hour.

All employees have now been back-paid in full.

Kim and his company also allegedly breached workplace laws by providing Fair Work inspectors with fabricated records that suggested staff had been paid much higher rates than they received. Pay slip laws and minimum engagement hours were also allegedly breached.

Judge Robert Cameron said Kim expressed no remorse or regret for his actions and the failure to keep proper records "is a particularly pernicious practice because it makes the proper quantification of workers' entitlements more difficult than would otherwise be the case".

Mr Cameron said the penalties should serve as a warning to other businesses against the exploitation of overseas workers.

Ms James said she was increasingly concerned about the number of employers who are underpaying workers from within their own ethnic communities.

She said Australian laws for the payment of minimum wages and keeping accurate employment records and issuing pay slips applied to all employers and were not negotiable.

"We treat cases involving underpayment of overseas workers particularly seriously because we are conscious that they can be vulnerable due to a lack of awareness of their entitlements, language barriers and a reluctance to complain," she said.

"I understand there are cultural challenges and vastly different laws in other parts of the world, but it is incumbent on all businesses operating in Australia to understand and apply Australian laws.

"To that end, the Fair Work Ombudsman is here to help with free advice and resources in a range of languages.

whiteknight wrote on May 12^th, 2017 at 8:02am:


It should have been $870,040