The Fair Work Ombudsman (FWO) has secured a total of $112,985 in penalties against the former operators of three Cash Converters stores in Melbourne’s north and west.
The Federal Circuit and Family Court imposed a total of $94,175 in penalties against SNNB Enterprises ($49,500), Taylors Business ($24,875) and Yarraville Business ($19,800), which operated Cash Converters stores at Epping, Delahey and Yarraville, respectively.
In addition, the sole director of the three companies, Graeme Grainger, was penalised $18,810.
The penalties were imposed in response to the companies’ deliberate failure to comply with compliance notices requiring them to calculate and back-pay seven full-time workers’ entitlements.
Mr Grainger was involved in the contraventions, the FWO said.
Fair Work inspectors issued the companies with compliance notices between November 2022 and February 2023 after forming a belief they had underpaid the seven affected workers, who had been engaged as store managers, retail employees and shop assistants.
The inspectors formed a belief the companies had failed to pay the workers’ accrued but untaken annual leave entitlements at the end of their employment, and had underpaid five of the workers’ minimum wages for work performed during 2022.
The combined amount the companies were required to pay the workers to comply with the compliance notices was $58,605, with required payments to individual workers ranging from $2972 to $16,833.
The three stores have now closed.
The court also ordered the companies to comply with the compliance notices, including rectifying any outstanding entitlements, plus interest.
It was the second time the FWO has taken legal action against Yarraville Business.
The company was penalised $16,000 in court in 2024 for also failing to comply with a compliance notice which required it to calculate and back-pay entitlements to a worker.
In her judgement, Judge Heather Riley found that the failure to comply with the compliance notices was “deliberate” and she said that regardless of a company’s size employers needed to comply with compliance notices.
Judge Riley said assertions by Mr Grainger that if he had his time again he would do things differently did not amount to a “genuine or heartfelt expression of remorse … they were just an opportunistic and formulaic use of words”.
