29-year-old Bhupinder Singh worked as a trolley collector at Coles Supermarket in Adelaide. Due to his poor command over English, Singh accepted a job that paid him as low as $5 per hour.
But now Bhupinder’s employers, Sydney-based Starlink entities, have been penalised. This company is now in liquidation but its former company director and his operations manager have been penalised a total of $188,100 for their role in underpaying 10 trolley collectors more than $220,000 in Adelaide.
The penalty, handed down by the Federal Court, was a result of intervention by the Fair Work Ombudsman, which fought to uphold the workplace rights of trolley collectors in the Coles supply chain in Adelaide, which had short-changed vulnerable overseas trolley collectors over 18 months.
One migrant employee from India, Bhupinder Singh, was underpaid almost $90,000.
Bhupinder had not received 65 per cent of his total wages. According to a report in The Australian, Mr Singh, who struggles to speak English, and his wife, Sara, said others in the same situation should seek help.
“My husband ... was taken advantage of because he did not have a good understanding of English,’’ Ms Singh said. “I would say to other migrants to find someone who has good English and know your rights. It is lucky an inspector came along, otherwise we would never have got what he was owed.”
Coles has back-paid more than $220,000 owed to the 10 Adelaide trolley collectors.
Following this, Coles has also established a $500,000 fund that will be used to back-pay any other trolley collectors who were subsequently found to have been underpaid.
Fair Work Ombudsman Natalie James welcomed the penalties, saying the decision completed a trifecta for the Adelaide underpayment matter. “This is the culmination of a lot of hard work by the Agency’s Overseas Workers Team to develop a strategy to stop the exploitation of vulnerable workers in the non-compliant trolley collecting industry by involving the benefactors of the labour in the enforcement outcomes,’’ Ms James said.
Coles Operations and Supply Chain Director Andy Coleman has told the Fair Work Ombudsman the company has transformed its trolley collection service across Australia to eradicate underpayment of trolley collectors. “We have since made further improvements to the management of our trolley collection by directly employing our own team to collect trolleys at more than 520 stores across Australia.”
More information on your rights available at: www.fairwork.gov.au
People seeking assistance can also contact the Fair Work Infoline on 13 13 94.
