Repeat offender rips off vulnerable worker for $60,000

A Sydney retailer has been fined $161,000 for deliberately underpaying a Chinese migrant worker $60,000.

JPA Manchester store, in Sydney.

A Sydney retailer has been fined $161,000 for deliberately underpaying a Chinese migrant worker $60,000 and continuing the rip-off despite entering into an agreement with the workplace regulator following similar law-breaking against a second ­employee.

JPA Manchester, which sells bed linen and homewares under the trading name Benson Australia at outlets in Redfern and Miranda, paid below-award flat rates of $9 to $19.15 an hour to the shop assistant from January 2012 to ­October 2015.

The Federal Circuit Court found the owner-operator, Jia Ping Ou, continued to underpay the 56-year-old worker, who had limited English, for 12 months after entering into an enforceable undertaking with the Fair Work Ombudsman in 2014.

The undertaking was struck after an investigation found the company underpaid another worker, a Chinese national, more than $27,000 between 2010 and 2014, paying her as ­little as $8 an hour.

Judge Justin Smith said the contraventions after the undertaking was struck “must have been entirely deliberate”.

He said there was no question, at least by the time of the enforceable undertaking, that JPA was aware of its obligations under the retail award but continued to underpay the worker for a further 12 months.

The worker gave uncontested evidence that she struggled to pay for basic items, including food, and could not afford to visit her family in China.

She relied on others for money, including her former partner, and was concerned that she could not meet her mortgage obligations and might have to sell her home.

“On the other hand, JPA has, for years now, benefited from the underpayment contraventions and has effectively shifted part of the costs burden of its business onto a vulnerable employee,’’ Justice Smith found.

Although the worker thought she was being underpaid, she believed, at her age, she would find it difficult to get another job. Justice Smith said the employer showed little or no contrition.