New laws that nationally criminalise wage theft from January 1

December 30, 2024 6:42 AM

Australian bosses could go to jail for 10 years and be fined $1.65 million if they deliberately underpay their workers, as part of new laws that nationally criminalise wage theft from January 1. The new laws and penalties follow years of underpayment scandals in Australia, with cases at prominent employers including Woolworths, Chatime, Qantas, NAB, BHP, 7-Eleven and the ABC. Until now, the federal body that investigates wage theft has only been able to go after companies and their directors using civil laws, which don't come with the threat of jail time. Now Fair Work will be able to go after them using criminal laws too.
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries (21 comments total)

This is so good. I want this where I live so much.

In North America wage theft outstrips every other kind of theft combined and it’s not close. It’s about time we saw people going to jail for the biggest, most frequently committed and least punished crimes around.
posted by mhoye at 6:45 AM on December 30 [19 favorites]

Woot!

I'd rather have seen a percentage of net worth rather than a fixed amount, but I'll take any sort of actual criminalization of wage theft I can get! Go Australia!
posted by sotonohito at 6:51 AM on December 30 [7 favorites]

I love this for you.
posted by phunniemee at 7:04 AM on December 30 [3 favorites]

This is awesome.
posted by 3.2.3 at 7:30 AM on December 30 [1 favorite]

In North America wage theft outstrips every other kind of theft combined and it’s not close.

I am not disputing this, but I would like to learn more. Do you have any sources?
posted by NotLost at 8:02 AM on December 30 [1 favorite]

More generally, I welcome any laws that hold bosses individually liable for what their companies do, especially criminally liable.
posted by NotLost at 8:07 AM on December 30 [5 favorites]

I am not disputing this, but I would like to learn more. Do you have any sources?

the findings in this [2017] report—and similar previous studies—indicate that even when examining only one form of possible wage theft, the magnitude of the crime being committed against American workers is huge. Workers in the 10 most populous states, home to about half of the country’s total workforce, are being cheated out of $8 billion annually. If these findings hold true for the other half of the U.S. workforce, it would mean that bad employers across the country are stealing around $15 billion annually from their employees just from minimum wage violations alone.

It is worth noting that this number, $15 billion, exceeds the value of property crimes committed in the United States each year: according to the FBI, the total value of all robberies, burglaries, larceny, and motor vehicle theft in the United States in 2015 was $12.7 billion

posted by jedicus at 8:28 AM on December 30 [20 favorites]

I also would like this, especially the jail time, where I live. Currently there is defacto zero penalty for wage theft. If your employer shafts you on overtime, doesn't pay you for hours worked, or doesn't provide all the compensation contracted for your only recourse is a long drawn out process with labour relations where, if they agree with you, the only penalty is your employer has to pay what they owed you.
posted by Mitheral at 8:31 AM on December 30 [6 favorites]

This change much like body cams on cops, has lots fun unintended consequences, like automatic firings for clocking in late, which will likely effect many more people that wage theft ever did.

This will likely take a couple of years to see if its better overall.
posted by vincentmeanie at 8:38 AM on December 30 [1 favorite]

This change much like body cams on cops, has lots fun unintended consequences, like automatic firings for clocking in late, which will likely effect many more people that wage theft ever did.

Businesses are going to spread plenty of propaganda about this, you don’t need to spend your life doing it uncompensated.
posted by adamsc at 8:45 AM on December 30 [39 favorites]

I'm going to guess that a place that puts in place this sort of law is also going to have worker protections that will curb the sort of "at will" abuses one sees in other jurisdictions that would let someone be fired immediately after clocking in late.
posted by Mitheral at 9:24 AM on December 30 [4 favorites]

It's not like one would want to continue working at a place that would fire you for clocking in one minute late.
Maybe there was a line at the time clock!
These type of employers need workers more than workers need these type jobs.
posted by nofundy at 10:09 AM on December 30 [2 favorites]

Good on you, mates!
Wage cashback schemes sound like something thought up by totally despicable slime. How can people sleep at night?

Now if Fair Work could lend us Yanks a couple muscular blokes with a conscience to take care of the restaurant and service industry that are the biggest wage thieves in the world, we could get started on our unethical messes. Unfortunately, it's only going to get worse here in the next four years. But this can show us the way.
posted by BlueHorse at 10:54 AM on December 30 [3 favorites]

This change much like body cams on cops, has lots fun unintended consequences, like automatic firings for clocking in late, which will likely effect many more people that wage theft ever did.


the "seatbelts can* cause accidents to be more deadly, how dare you mandate them!" proposal. ^{*in 0.000001% of fatal accidents}
posted by lalochezia at 1:09 PM on December 30 [4 favorites]

I'm going to guess that a place that puts in place this sort of law is also going to have worker protections that will curb the sort of "at will" abuses one sees in other jurisdictions that would let someone be fired immediately after clocking in late.

Australian worker protections are significantly stronger than in the US, so yes, this is not going to result in the kind of abuses American workers are likely to face.

We have robust unfair dismissal laws that can be used to prosecute employers who fire staff without recourse or unfairly. These laws apply to most forms of employment, including casual employment. I've personally been involved in unfair dismissal cases for what we call casual employees, where staff are paid hourly and do not have set hours. If you are employed for a regular set of hours, even as a casual, and you are fired in a manner you feel is undue, you have recourse under the law.

This isn't in practice perfect, and there's still a lot of exploitation and wage theft, but this is a huge step in the right direction. If I do the math on it, I'm a few tens of thousands of dollars out over the years for 'show up early to help set up but we won't pay you' and 'we'll only open on the holiday if we can pay you standard, not double time' type of bullshit. I'm glad there's more recourse now.
posted by Jilder at 3:30 PM on December 30 [8 favorites]

This is tremendous; I look forward to seeing the results.
posted by rednikki at 5:19 PM on December 30 [1 favorite]

And will the Australian press mention this, ever again, even once, in the context of any story prompted by Dutton's mob wheeling out "Labor has done nothing about the cost of living" for the 10,000,000,000th time?

Will they fuck.
posted by flabdablet at 12:18 AM on December 31 [4 favorites]

like automatic firings for clocking in late, which will likely effect many more people that wage theft ever did

Employers can always choose to be ridiculous, they don't need a reason. Unless it's really poorly written, a wage theft law should have zero effect on employers caring about the wall clock time that employees begin and end their shift, so long as the in and out times reflect the hours actually worked.

It will, hopefully, give managers inclined to pressure employees to falsify their time entries pause, however.
posted by wierdo at 3:35 AM on December 31 [6 favorites]

7-Eleven's breaches have been so egregious that they have a good chance of failing once forced to pay a legal wage.

Other retailers will most likely need anti-monopoly legislation to get some teeth again before the needle moves there.
posted by krisjohn at 1:33 PM on December 31 [2 favorites]

Agreed wierdo, there are surely a few passive agressive bosses/managers who apply wage theft when they believed employees deserved less, with a few of those even being correct about worked hours or whatever, but overall wage theft is typically just theft, unrelated to emplyee metrics.

2018: Wage theft is a much bigger problem than other thefts combined

Trump cheated hundreds of contractors. Architects increase specifications knowing contractors skim. These and other analogs of wage theft occur between buisnesses frequently, and should sometimes be criminal too, but in wage theft one party usually doesn't have the time or means to recouple, so it shoudl be criminal more often.
posted by jeffburdges at 7:57 PM on December 31

A reminder that the most egregious wage theft offenders in Australia employ our most skilled - and most precarious - workers .

Could you live on 120 paid hours a year? Because I certainly can't. And it's not a vote winner, so nobody cares.
posted by prismatic7 at 3:01 AM on January 1 [2 favorites]