Vegetable grower Lotus Farm Pty Ltd faces court for alleged wage underpayment and falsified records

A Victorian vegetable grower has been charged with underpaying employees and falsifying records.

A Victorian tomato and cucumber farm allegedly underpaid workers more than $28,000 and falsified records.

A Victorian vegetable grower has been charged with underpaying employees and falsifying records.

Lotus Farm Pty Ltd, which produces tomatoes and cucumbers at Werribee South, will face the Federal Circuit Court in Melbourne in August on charges it underpaid two employees more than $28,000, falsified records to hide the underpayments, and made unlawful deductions.

One of the company’s directors, Son Thai, is also facing charges.

In a statement, the Fair Work Ombudsman said it investigated the company after receiving requests for assistance from two former employees.

The employees told the ombudsman they were paid illegally low flat hourly rates of $13-$14 while working as pickers and packers between June 2017 and September 2020.

The ombudsman alleges they are owed a total of $28,530.82 and claims Mr Thai, when confronted with the allegations, produced 21 falsified pay slips for one employee that stated they worked 15 hours per week and were paid the lawful amount for those hours, instead of working more hours for illegally low rates.

The FWO alleges that Lotus Farm also underpaid one employee’s overtime and public holiday penalty entitlements, made unlawful deductions from one employee’s wages, failed to make and keep required records, and failed to provide pay slips to the employees.

Lotus Farms director Son Thai told The Weekly Times there had been a “misunderstanding” and he had since repaid the alleged underpaid wages.

The company faces maximum penalties of $66,600 for each contravention of the Fair Work Act. Mr Thai faces penalties of up to $13,320 per contravention.

The litigation comes after the ombudsman announced in May it had issued $176,028 worth of fines for pay slip and record-keeping breaches to 64 employers in the agriculture sector, a figure the Australian Workers Union labelled “a drop in the ocean”.