Incarceration is not an option.
Your second need may be possible.
The Fair Work Act does provide for directors and responsible persons to be fined in addition to the company involved.
It does depend on the evidence put by FWA and the court to decide.
How great the risk?
I can imagine the judicial arguments of âinvolved inâ and then âcourt orders mayâ. Business as usual for the board rooms?
The use of we can like in all good English usage means the ability but not the requirement. I would hazard that they do not have the desire in most cases to interfere with normal practices. If they started doing that they would most likely come in for some heavy disgruntled lobbying from pollies. Only where it perhaps becomes so egregious that there was a large (50%+ of the population) outcry would they then perhaps consider action (lots of perhaps that means that it will only ever occur once every blue moon if we all sang âLand of Hope and Gloryâ at the same time). Coles, Woolworths, etc etc etc who have failed by not paying incomes that should have been made on time to their workers, have suffered no real penalty for gross failures and/or absolute ineptitude (or greed). If these arenât big enough cases what level needs to be reached before it will occur? If a pollieâs pay packet was under paid would that cause FWA to take action?
Perhaps something that may make employers take notice, is if an issue comes to the attention of the authorities such as FWA, maybe anonymously, then they get audited. If the audit finds problems, then an auditor or several is assigned to that employer for, say three years, at the employerâs expense to verify that they are doing everything according to the industrial relations laws.
Another wages theft case.
Indigenous workers ripped off again by being paid a pittance from class action settlements.
Talk about adding insult to injury.
While not explicitly related to wages theft, it makes one wonder why only 30 signed up to do the right thing. The rest? âTrust meâ?
I read that one early this morning. They canât even let people know who the 30 farms/farmers are, they are waiting for some critical mass to occur before they will publish the names. The spokeperson also said that it will take some time to turn such a large industry around so they are being fair (my paraphrasing). I would have thought that paying proper wages and ensuring fair work conditions was a matter of Law and not some whimsy of a farmer to choose whether they comply or not. Perhaps we should make pollies earn what we think is right for them and charge them for the accommodation they use until this is rectified, I wonder how fast they would react then until farmers were paying properly.
One would think that with the desparate shortage of workers to harvest produce due to the coronavirus travel restrictions, that any primary producer who wants to sell their crops would be happy to pay bonus rates instead of cheating their workers.
Every day I read articles of doom and gloom regarding the dire shortage of labour and crops to be left to rot.
Yet another article regarding the desperate shortage of farm workers.
If I was a farmer, I would prefer to pay bonuses rather than take a 80% drop in profits.
Maybe not bonuses, though they would help. I think paying real award wages and not gouging for the accommodation and such might entice more pickers.
âŠset a precedent that even backpackers would expect. Cannot have that can we? Considering the attention from âthe authoritiesâ worldwide regarding paying itinerant farm workers proper wages what are the odds?
I like your sarcasm there 
Well put and yes the odds are not favourable towards a good and proper outcomeâŠbut then who is determining what is good and proper makes the difference as to what one might see as the ârightâ outcome.
Friend of ours canât get workers for his trawler. He had staff on Jobkeeper, but they didnât want to go back to work. No idea what he pays, but has never been short of staff.
He rang asking if I would go strawberry picking. His mate was offering $3,000 plus bonuses for quality, quantity etc, but couldnât get workers, so he upped it to $3,500 and still couldnât get enough. So our mate was ringing all his old friends (in their 70âs to 80âs) to see if any of us could help out.
The orchard next door is struggling to get staff for next month, this in a 17% unemployed area. I will be picking and packing there. Our favourite cafe has been closed for 2 months because they canât get a chef. Maybe Jobkeeper/seeker has raised expectations of above award wages.
Trawlers often pay on catch value, not wages per se. This means often that some do long hours for little income if the catch is small. Good skippers keep good records (and these are often jealously guarded) of where to shoot their nets, but there has been a big decline in catch and in the value of the catch. Not that we are seeing this price reduction in most retail stores. So perhaps a sign of that loss in value.
The rest I canât make much comment on, it is still opaque what the $3,000 in pay refers to eg hours worked, amount that needs picking to reach this level, accommodation costs and similar.
I should have phrased it as paying above award renumeration.
$3,500 per fortnight base wage, find your own accommodation & transport (looking for locals). Bonus for good pickers - any mug can pull the plant out of the ground, squash the fruit or pick unripe, or stare at the mobile all day. Good pickers cut stems to the correct length, discard damaged fruit, donât bruise fruit, keep trash out. I have not worked for these people. Due to my age I usually get put in the packing shed. Supervisory, payroll, but I rather like the sorting table. I have heard of shonky labour hire firms, but not so much lately.
I was gob-smacked when someone asked me why the farmers couldnât just pick their own fruit. Thereâs still a lot of education needed for city folk to realise how their food comes to them.
The job vacancies seem to be higher than before COVID. So many services curtailed in our rural area because no one can be found wanting to work for the Award wages on offer. In some cases Jobseeker was paying more, although I think it has dropped a bit since.
Jobkeeper rates have indeed dropped as have Jobseeker rates. Most pickers if eligible would be on Teir 2 rates ie they werenât employed by the business before July 2020. This rate of pay per week is $750 per week for a 40 hour week. The employer must have suffered a loss of trade as well to meet the criteria, I guess farmers may have some leeway in this. This doesnât mean the farmer canât pay a picker more, the subsidy would just hep the farmer in not having to spend as much of their money to make up the pay.
If a farmworker was employed by the farm before this date and must also have been in March 2020 they could get the tier 1 rate of $1,200 per week. Not at all likely for a seasonal picker.
At the 4th of January these rates drop even further to T1 at $1,000 per week and T2 at $600 per week.
Jobseeker rates are far less per fortnight:
Up until 31 Dec (I think it has now been extended to March 2021 but not sure)
Single $815.70 includes:
$565.70 JobSeeker Payment
$250 Coronavirus Supplement.
Single with a dependent child $862.00 includes:
$612 JobSeeker Payment
$250 Coronavirus Supplement.
Single, 60 or older, after 9 continuous months on payment $862.00 includes:
$612 JobSeeker Payment
$250 Coronavirus Supplement.
Partnered $760.80 each includes:
$510.80 JobSeeker Payment
$250 Coronavirus Supplement.
A farmer offering $3,500 base rate a fortnight would be better by around $2,700 a fortnight than Jobseeker. That $3,500 would be contingent on a lot of factors as you noted, how much would an unskilled, learning the trade type picker get? I would think far less and the season may well be at an end by the time they reach the $3,500 mark or even a reasonably better rate than Jobseeker. However if they paid just for hours worked (also needing to consider that if a worker was at least doing their best while learning) then they may have more willing participants but it may not be profitable or as profitable as paying already skilled workers.
A different type of wages theft.
An article regarding the Oxfam report on Australian brands exploitation of factory worhers.
And the worst are Mosaic Brands and The Just Group (Premier Investments).
Who would have thought?
