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Fair Work Ombudsman Refuses To Help Underpaid Workers

Fair Work Ombudsman refuses to help underpaid workers

The Fair Work Ombudsman refuses to help underpaid workers from a musical instrument retailer.

Staff say the regulator has refused to assist them, despite ample evidence of the wage theft.

Fair Work Ombudsman refuses to help

Six workers from the Allans Billy Hyde store in Sydney spoke to Triple J Hack claiming the store underpaid them between $9,000 and $20,000 each.

Former staff member Tristan Courtney-Prior said he worked for the company for three years before discovering the wage theft.

“Then I spent a very long few weeks creating Excel spreadsheets and going through the payslips,” he told Hack.

“It turned out I was underpaid about $17,500.

“It feels like you’ve been cheated or taken advantage of.”

Fair Work says it can’t make employer pay

The company admitted to the underpayments and promised to back-pay staff, however, it failed to do so.

The workers subsequently contacted Fair Work for help.

After a year-long investigation, and despite ample evidence, the regulator Fair Work told Courtney-Prior that it had no power to make Allans Billy Hyde pay what it owed them.

“I couldn’t believe that we live in a country like Australia with all its rules and regulations and still it seems like that’s meaningless,” Courtney-Prior said.

“It felt like [Fair Work] was almost there for show.”

Another former worker who is owed almost $20,000 was told by Fair Work to take the matter to court himself – which he did.

“Basically the judge ruled in my favour in about three minutes… and that was early June but I’m still waiting to be back paid,” he told Hack.

Tristan Courtney-Prior is owed more than $17,500.

Fair Work response ‘appalling’

Miles Heffernan, Director of Litigation at IR Claim, described the response from Fair Work as “appalling”.

“It is not true that Fair Work can’t make employers back-pay workers,” he said.

“They can issue a Compliance Notice requiring an employer to back-pay underpayments within a certain time.

“If the employer fails to do so, the matter can be taken straight to the Federal Court.”

Despite a budget of $117 million, Fair Work managed to launch just 33 litigations involving pay and conditions.

The Fair Work website states it will only commence litigation where there is evidence, and if it is in the public interest.

“It is an absolute joke – what could be more in the public interest than recovering the tens of thousands of dollars owed to these employees,” Mr Heffernan said.

Fair Work could take legal action tomorrow to help these workers if it wanted to, but for some reason, it has chosen not to do so.”


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