 Employers in Western Australia, South Australia and the Northern Territory will be asked to open their books to allow Fair Work inspectors to check if they are paying staff their minimum entitlements.
These include minimum hourly rates, penalty rates and overtime. Compliance with record-keeping and payslip obligations will also be monitored, according to the Fair Work Ombudsman.
Inspectors will focus on retailers operating in shopping centres and on retail strips in metropolitan and regional areas, including:
WA: Perth, Albany, Broome, Bunbury and Geraldton.
SA: Adelaide, Mount Gambier, Port Augusta, Port Pirie and Whyalla.
NT: Darwin and Alice Springs.
The campaign will focus on clothing and merchandise retailers, as well as some food retailers, such as supermarkets. Butchers, fishmongers and fruit and vegetable shops will be excluded, as they were recently the subject of a specialist food retailers’ campaign in South Australia.
The Fair Work Ombudsman wrote to more than 3000 retailers throughout WA, SA and the NT late last year to alert employers of the campaign and to highlight the free resources it offers businesses to understand and comply with workplace laws. Where inspectors discover issues, they assist employers to voluntarily rectify contraventions.
“We recognise that errors happen, so we have a flexible and fair approach to inadvertent mistakes and employers who are willing to co-operate with us to ensure they don’t occur in the future,” Fair Work Ombudsman Natalie James said today.
“This campaign provides a great opportunity for retailers to improve their understanding of workplace laws.”
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