More than two dozen apprentice bakers, baker’s assistants and bakery shop assistants – over half of them aged under 21 – have been reimbursed almost $40,000 after the Fair Work Ombudsman found they were being underpaid.
The workers were underpaid their minimum hourly rates of pay, casual loadings, weekend and public holiday penalty rates and shift allowances.
The individual underpayments ranged from $104 to $3672.
Three staff were underpaid by more than $3000, four by more than $2000 and seven by more than $1000.
The underpayments came to light after the Fair Work Ombudsman conducted a pro-active audit of JCMA’s stores
The Company has signed an Enforceable Undertaking, in which it agrees to conduct further self-auditing to ensure its employees are receiving their full, lawful entitlements..
She says it also highlights that small mistakes, left over time, can result in hefty bills for back-payment of wages that employers had not budgeted for.
Lesson: At HR Central, a key part of our “sign up” process is that we conduct an audit aimed at identifying, as the FWO puts it, the ‘small mistakes that left over time, can result in hefty bills for back payments’. So an investment in HR Central now can have a long term pay off by mitigating situations like the scenario at Bakers Delight.