Trolley-collection boss fined $230,000 for pocketing refugees’ wages

Company fined $230,000 for unlawfully paying workers as little as $9 an hour to collect supermarket trolleys.

ACTU secretary Sally McManus.

A supermarket trolley-collection company has been fined $230,000 for deliberately exploiting two migrant workers, paying them as little as $9.73 an hour and using false records to try to cover up the law-breaking.

Federal Circuit Court judge Patrizia Mercuri said the penalty was designed to send a message to employers in the trolley-collection industry that failing to comply with their workplace obligations would have consequences.

Jobanjeet Singh was penalised $40,510 and his company, Joban’s Trolley Collection, was fined a further $190,128 for underpaying the migrants from Afghanistan and Pakistan an estimated $25,000 over six months in 2015.

The refugees, who had limited English language, had arrived recently and been granted permanent residency. They were paid rates ranging from $9.73 to $19.32 an hour.

Joban’s Trolley Collection employed the two to collect trolleys for Woolworths retail stores at the Bendigo Marketplace shopping centre as part of a subcontract it had at the time with United Trolley Collections.

United Trolley Collections no longer holds any contracts with Joban’s Trolley Collection and Joban no longer operates at any Woolworths sites.

During an investigation by the Fair Work Ombudsman, Mr Singh and his company knowingly provided government inspectors with false time and wages records that overstated what the two workers were paid.

Mr Singh gave evidence that “it was never my intention to exploit or harm the interests” of the workers. However, Judge Mercuri found he had “employed individuals with limited skills and knowledge of English … or capacity to enforce their rights”.

She rejected his claims that he was “unaware” of his legal obligations and found that the contraventions were deliberate.

“His conduct in creating false records and ensuring that (United Trolley Collections) did not become aware of his payment arrangements belies this explan­ation and suggests that he in fact was well aware that what he was doing was wrong,” she said.

She found the provision of false records to the Fair Work Ombudsman was “a deliberate act to try and minimise the respondents’ contraventions of workplace laws”, and that there was a need for a penalty to deter Mr Singh from future contraventions, noting that he had registered another company.

ACTU secretary Sally McManus said cases like this were commonplace.

“Wage theft not only rips off workers but costs good employers who are forced to compete with employers who just ignore our laws,’’ she said.

“Often they lose contracts because they can’t compete with employers who underpay their workers.”