Businesses in Adelaide have recently come under greater scrutiny with the Fair Work Ombudsman announcing that it will audit up to 125 businesses in Adelaide’s CBD and North Adelaide over the next three months.

Fair Work said that its inspectors will check that employers are paying the correct minimum hourly rates, penalty rates, allowances, loadings and providing appropriate meal breaks. Compliance with record-keeping and pay-slip obligations will also be monitored.

Recently, the operators of an Adelaide business were fined a total of $6460 after failing to pay an $850 on-the-spot fine for not issuing pay-slips to two overseas workers. This followed penalties of $3500 and $1500 respectively against Adelaide company Mobizone Pty Ltd and its part-owner Raymond Kebbe after they failed to pay a $550 on-the-spot fine issued by the Fair Work Ombudsman.

Dragon Tea House Pty Ltd and its sole director Xia Xu Zhou were issued with an Infringement Notice for not issuing pay-slips to two employees at the Chinese restaurant they previously ran on Pulteney Street.

Fair Work Ombudsman Natalie James says inspectors determined that an Infringement Notice imposing an $850 on-the-spot fine was a proportionate response to the workplace contravention by Dragon Tea Houe Pty Ltd. However, the fine was not paid by the due date.

In response, the Industrial Relations Court handed down a $5100 penalty against Dragon Tea House and a further $1360 penalty against Zhou for her involvement.

Industrial Magistrate Stephen Lieschke found that Zhou had deliberately contravened workplace law and had tried to deceive and mislead Fair Work inspectors about whether pay-slips were issued. He noted that the provision of accurate pay-slips was fundamental to employees understanding and checking their wages. The affected employees were “vulnerable foreign workers who were in a poor position to check they were not being cheated out of their lawful minimum wages”.

In the case of Mobizone, the company issued pay-slips, and only when asked for them by their employee.

Ms James says Court the rulings should serve as a reminder to other employers that ignoring the Fair Work Ombudsman “won’t make us go away”.

 “We place a high importance on enforcing compliance with pay-slip obligations, because when employees don’t receive them, it undermines their ability to understand how their wages have been calculated and to check they’ve received their minimum lawful entitlements,” she said