Victor Harbor fruit and veg shop settles $50,000 wage theft claim for underpaying full-time worker Paul Baillie

A regional South Australian fruit and veg shop has settled an underpayment claim by a former worker – after failing to pay his entitlements including penalty rates.

A South Australian supermarket has paid $50,000 to settle an underpayment claim of a former worker who was not properly paid penalty rates or the correct holiday leave for four years.

In a claim brought by the Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees Association on behalf of full-time employee Paul Baillie, a Victor Harbor fruit and vegetable grocer had failed to pay Mr Baillie the correct entitlements including evening, weekend and public holiday penalty rates between August 2016 and September 2020.

Veg Out Victor – which is now under new ownership that was in no way connected to the underpayment – had also failed to pay the correct 17.5 per cent loading on all periods of annual leave, as stipulated in the General Retail Award.

Veg Out Victor has since been sold to new owners.

SDA secretary Josh Peak said the underpayment, which was settled by the South Australian Employment Tribunal, had “severely” reduced Mr Baillie’s take home pay.

The union pursued civil penalties against the supermarket on behalf of Mr Baillie as a deterrent measure in the case which had been running since 2020.

Mr Peak said wage theft continued to “run rampant” across retail and many other industries across Australia.

“Wage theft of this scale can’t be put down to an issue within the payroll department, it shows a complete lack of understanding and care for our industrial instruments,” he said, speaking generally.

“Every cent counts right now and it’s already hard enough for workers to make ends meet without their employer deliberately exploiting them.”

In 2022-2023, the Fair Work Ombudsman recovered over $509 million in unpaid wages and entitlements for more than 250,000 workers.

Mr Peak said those figures were likely the “tip of the iceberg” and that estimates and research suggested Australian workers were being short-changed $1 billion in pay and entitlements each year.

He said pursuing an underpayment claim was time consuming and costly and more must be done to deter employers from deliberately underpaying workers, including introducing criminal penalties.

“Underpaying workers and not paying penalty rates isn’t a business model, it’s a crime,” he said.

“Too many employers are getting away with deliberately underpaying workers and not having to pay the consequences.

“To deter this and compel employers to do the right thing, introducing national and state-based wage theft laws is now a matter of urgency.”

Originally published as Victor Harbor fruit and veg shop settles $50,000 wage theft claim for underpaying full-time worker Paul Baillie