Kitchen Republik, Box Hill, Melbourne. Pic: Facebook. 

By Danielle Bowling

In less than nine months, a Melbourne restaurant underpaid a Taiwanese visa holder more than $30,000 in what the case’s judge referred to as “an egregious departure from the mandated minimum rates of pay.”

Food Republic Australia Pty Ltd, the operators of the Taiwanese and Malaysian hawker-style restaurant now trading as Kitchen Republik in Box Hill, have been ordered to pay $107,551 after admitting to underpaying the worker with flat hourly rates of $10 and $11.

The employee, in Australia on a 417 working holiday visa and speaking limited English, was 22 years old at the time and was underpaid $33,169 working as a kitchen hand between June and November 2014, and March and July 2015.

Read more here. 

This story first appeared in Hospitality Magazine.