New inspectors for wage compliance

New inspectors for wage compliance THE State Government will appoint an additional four industrial inspectors to undertake workplace compliance checks to ensure employers and staff are aware of their rights and obligations under state and federal industrial relations laws. The appointments take the total number of inspectors to 24. Consumer and Employment Protection Minister John Kobelke said increasing the number of industrial inspectors would assist the department’s investigations and compliance campaigns, which had recovered $5.2 million in underpayments for 4,000 employees during the past four years. He said $5.2 million was double the amount recovered in the previous four years, indicating the need for more education and compliance checks. “Three major compliance campaigns in the hotel, tavern, restaurant and cafe industries alone had recovered over $1 million of underpayments to employees,” Mr Kobelke said. “While most employers do the right thing by their staff, there are some who either are not aware of their obligations or attempt to rip-off their workers. “My serious concern is that in some industries more than 50 per cent of employers inspected were not meeting proper conditions that apply to their workers.”