Toorak duo in $150,000 pay penalty

ERIN PEARSON
The former owners of central Geelong’s 7-Eleven and their company have been fined $150,000 for underpaying international students.
A Melbourne magistrate found Toorak’s Hao Chen and Xue Jing guilty of deliberately exploiting six students from Zimbabwe and India between 2005 and 2009.
The penalty followed a Fair Work Ombudsman investigation and prosecution.
Magistrate Kate Hawkins fined Chen and Jing $20,000 and $10,000 respectively and handed down a further $120,000 fine on their private company, Bosen Pty Ltd.
Ms Hawkins also ordered Bosen to back-pay the six students almost $90,000.
Fair Work Ombudsman inspectors discovered the underpayments when they investigated complaints from the employees.
The students, aged 18 to 26, were paid flat rates of between $9 and $12 an hour but were entitled to more than twice as much, the investigation found.
Chen and Jing also failed to pay the victims annual leave entitlements and unlawfully required some to undertake unpaid training before starting paid employment.
Ms Hawkins said the company supplied false information about hours of work and rates to 7-Eleven’s head office.
Store records were “deliberately thrown out”, she said.
Fair Work Ombudsman executive director Michael Campbell said the penalty sent a clear message the community refused to tolerate “deliberate exploitation”.
“International students and other foreign workers can be vulnerable because they are often not fully aware of their workplace rights in Australia, so we take instances of exploitation very seriously.”
However, a union spokesperson said the 7-Eleven workers would probably receive only a third of their entitlements because Bosen was set to go bankrupt.