An investigation of 11 franchises of a petroleum company has uncovered underpayment of a number of Indian and Bangladeshi international students.
Fair Work Ombudsman in its investigation of United Petroleum service stations found that six franchisees had been underpaying these employees thousands of dollars.
Five Indian students were underpaid $2,032 over a period of five months by a service station in Pooraka, Adelaide. Another outlet in Waterloo, Sydney underpaid Indian and Bangladeshi students $3,096.
The workers were being paid just $18 an hour instead of their entitlement of $25.05 on weekdays and $32.56 on the weekend.
Both operators have co-operated with the Fair Work Ombudsman and agreed to reimburse staff.
Fair Work Ombudsman had commenced this investigation in September last year following media reports suggesting workers were being paid as little as $10 an hour.
The Ombudsman said it wrote to United Petroleum head office about its investigation in December 2015, but the company did not respond.
Fair Work Ombudsman, Natalie James said, the investigation is nearing completion in the other outlets as well.
United Petroleum, in a statement given to ABC, said the underpayments were "minor" which were caused by "human error".
"These minor underpayments were due to the incorrect interpretation of penalty rates and in some cases human error."
"These instances of minor underpayments have been rectified (except for one person who cannot yet be found)."
On Tuesday,legal representatives acting for United Petroleum advised the Fair Work Ombudsman in writing that the company was prepared to meet with the Agency later this year to further discuss the idea of a compliance partnership and explore the potential benefits.
Ms James says that as some employees are reluctant to complain about their workplace issues, the agency now has an “Anonymous Report” function to allow the community to report potential workplace breaches.
“If someone suspects something isn’t right, but is unable or unwilling to get directly involved in resolving the issue, they can tell us about it using this new form,” Ms James said.
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