A southeast labour hire agency has been fined $15,500 without conviction after failing to pay casual workers their long service leave entitlements.
Despite at least seven years of service, five casual employees under Allstaff Australia RJE Pty Ltd had more than $32,000 in outstanding long-service leave entitlements on the day their employment ended.
Allstaff Australia RJE pleaded guilty in the Melbourne Magistrate’s Court after Wage Inspectorate Victoria began an investigation in November 2021 after receiving reports from former employees claiming that their long service leave entitlements had not been paid.
Commissioner of Wage Inspectorate Victoria, Robert Hortle said that “these employees were denied thousands of dollars in entitlements, some for over two years which is unacceptable”.
“This money could have been a crucial lifeline to help people meet living costs while they looked for a new job,” he said.
Individual underpayments ranged from $5176 to $7460, with some employees not receiving the money they were owed for over two years after their employment ended.
According to the Long Service Leave Act 2018, after at least seven years of continuous employment with one employer, an employee is entitled to take their long service leave and be paid any unused long service entitlement when employment ends.
This applies to full-time, part-time, casual, seasonal and fixed-term workers.
“For labour-hire businesses, your employees may be out of sight, but their entitlements cannot be out of mind. You can outsource your workers, but not their entitlements,” Mr Hortle said.
The workers were employed by Allstaff Australia RJE and then placed in various casual warehousing roles in other businesses, which included being packers, store persons and warehouse hands.
The offences took place between 7 April 2019 and 20 December 2021.
In Victoria, an employee must receive payment for any untaken long service leave on the day their employment ends, which applies to casual, part-time and seasonal employees.
Mr Hortle added that “this case highlights a poorly understood element of Victoria’s long service leave laws”.
“Casual employees with seven years of service are entitled to long service leave, in fact, even seasonal staff can be entitled to long service leave if they have worked for the company long enough,” he said.
In sentencing, Magistrate Brett Sonnet noted that if it had not been for the early guilty plea, he would have imposed a fine of $30,000.
Further into the state’s Long Service Leave Act, most Victorian employees will be covered by and entitled to long service leave, unless they have entitlement from another source, such as under other legislation, a registered agreement, award or another law.
