$170,000 in fines handed to farms and labour hire companies

Farms and labour hire companies have been fined more than $170,000 for breaking workplace rules by the Fair Work Ombudsman. Find out why.

Fines handed out to dozens of agricultural employers for breaking workplace rules are unlikely to change illegal practices, a union has warned.

The Fair Work Ombudsman announced on Friday it had issued 64 fines for pay slip and record-keeping breaches to employers in the agriculture sector, amounting to a total of $176,028.

The regulator also uncovered 10 instances of wage underpayment.

Australian Workers Union secretary Dan Walton said the average fine per breach of $2750 was “a drop in the ocean for a lot of bigger operators”.

He called for changes to labour hire licencing rules and workers’ rights under the Pacific Australia Labour Mobility scheme.

The majority — 55 — of the infringement notices went to labour hire entities, and nine to growers.

Mr Walton said the number of fines indicated “clearly there is an issue with labour hire licensing”.

“A lot of farmers are dependent on labour hire operators providing the right amount of labour at the right time (but) this out of sight, out of mind mentality is not good enough. Farmers need to be responsible for the working arrangements they put in place,” he said.

He called for more requirements to be placed on operators who wanted to set up labour hire businesses.

A spokeswoman for the National Farmers Federation said it was “good to see the cop is on the beat”.

While having 64 notices issued was “far from a gold star”, the NFF spokeswoman said it was also “not deep-rooted, widespread wage theft or exploitation”.

The NFF backed calls for an effective national labour hire licensing scheme.

“While penalties are a useful deterrent, they are not the only, or even the best way, to lift compliance. We are calling for a more streamlined system and for mechanisms that drum out dodgy operators,” the spokeswoman said.

Fair Work Ombudsman Sandra Parker said inspectors had consistently found higher levels of noncompliance in relation to labour hire companies, as opposed to growers who directly engage workers.

“It’s a red flag if workers can’t identify their employer and are paid cash-in-hand, without pay slips, by individuals seemingly unrelated to the apparent employing entity. This is prevalent in multi-level supply chains where we consistently find wrongdoing,” she said.

The Fair Work Ombudsman has fined farmers and labour hire contractors more than $170,000 for workplace breaches. Picture: AAP Image/Lukas Coch

$25,000 recovered for PALM workers

Seven companies employing workers under the PALM scheme were issued compliance notices, with $25,732 recovered for 252 employees – an average of $102 per worker.

Mr Walton said the small value of the recovered funds didn’t match the seriousness of some of the breaches that had been reported to the AWU, and could “tarnish Australia’s reputation” in the eyes of overseas workers.

“If you look at what is widespread illegal deductions out of (workers’) wages, paying extraordinarily high amounts for accommodation, for transport, (employers) deducting them for other non-approved matters, like that alone on a weekly basis would equal more than $100,” he said.

In one recent case, Mr Walton said AWU had visited a property in Shearwater, Tasmania, to find 43 PALM workers sleeping more than eight people to a room in bunk beds in a single house and paying $160 per week each for accommodation — a total weekly rent of $6880 for the house.

The case, which was currently under investigation, was an extreme example of a widespread problem, he said.

He called for rule changes to improve conditions, such as allowing PALM workers to leave an employer if conditions were poor.

“That’s going to force a bunch of the unsavoury operators to really lift their game if they want to remain in business,” Mr Walton said.

The federal government’s migration review, released last month, has proposed scrapping rules that tie overseas workers to their employers, in a bid to reduce the risk of exploitation. Instead, temporary workers could leave their job and find work elsewhere in the same sector, while employers would have to register to employ overseas staff.

Development Policy Centre research officer Evie Sharman said she would like to see more incentives for employers to lift their standards.

“The New Zealand horticulture sector is very export-oriented. They have an incentive to have a really strong, ethical supply chain (to meet the standards of) international consumers,” she said.

“In Australia, it is more domestic-focused horticulture. There isn’t as much of an incentive in the supply chain (to meet high ethical standards). There needs to be more incentive from the buyers of produce – the big supermarket companies — and consumers, to be aware of where their food is coming from.”