Sydney media company faces fines for underpaying workers

Anna Patty
November 12, 2015
A Sydney-based media company is facing penalties of up to $51,000 for its alleged failure to pay two young workers during their internship and later underpaying them nearly $19,000 over eight months.
The Fair Work Ombudsman Natalie James said that while the company had back-paid the two workers in full, legal action would go ahead because of the large amounts involved for the two young and vulnerable workers.
Ms James said she was also concerned the media company had been previously found to have underpaid two Chinese nationals more than $60,000 in wages and entitlements.
The Fair Work Ombudsman is taking legal action against AIMG BQ Pty Ltd and its company director Zhao Qing Jiang who runs Chinese-language websites and publications including Oriental BQ Weekly for Australia’s Chinese community.
The Ombudsman said two event co-ordinators were allegedly underpaid a total of $18,767 between October 2013 and June 2014.
One was a 24-year-old international student from China who was studying a master of event management degree at the University of Technology Sydney.
The student was allegedly required to do 180 hours of unpaid casual work over four months as part of an internship before being paid a flat rate of $100 per day, or an hourly rate of $13.33.
The Fair Work Ombudsman alleges the unpaid internship was unlawful because the student was performing productive work that was not part of her university studies.
The second employee, an Australian resident originally from China, was allegedly paid the same flat rate of $100 per day.
The two employees were allegedly entitled to award rates of more than $19 per hour and up to $38.30 per hour for overtime, weekend and public holiday work.
The international student was allegedly underpaid $8387 and the Australian resident was allegedly underpaid $10,380.
AIMG BQ faces maximum penalties of between $25,500 and $51,000 for each contravention.
Mr Jiang also faces a maximum penalty of up to $10,200 for one alleged contravention of workplace laws.
The Fair Work Ombudsman said Mr Jiang was allegedly involved in his company contravening workplace laws by failing to comply with a Notice to Produce documents issued by inspectors.
Mr Jiang also runs Melbourne media company, 3CW Chinese Radio Pty Ltd, which was previously found to have underpaid two Chinese nationals more than $60,000 in wages and entitlements.
A hearing is listed in the Federal Circuit Court in Sydney on March 15, 2016.
Melbourne company Crocmedia was fined $24,000 in January for an unpaid work arrangement that resulted in two young employees being underpaid thousands of dollars.