Compliance across the fast food, restaurant and café sector is an ongoing focus for the Fair Work Ombudsman who have recently conducted surprise inspections across hundreds of fast food outlets, restaurants and cafes across Australia.

Fair Work inspectors investigated businesses in the fast food, café and restaurant sector which were initiated from anonymous reports and requests for assistance from individual workers.

The FWO found that the majority of businesses investigated had breached workplace laws. The breaches included underpaying penalty rates and minimum wages for ordinary hours of work and the incorrect application of Award allowances. FWO also found that multiple businesses had not provided workers their leave entitlements and had not met their record keeping obligations under the Fair Work Act 2009.

What does this mean for employers?

It is important for employers to understand they must meet all their obligations in relation to wage payments including:

• paying the minimum wage which has recently increased on 1 July 2024,
• paying penalty rates to compensate workers for working outside usual working hours
• paying the correct allowances to compensate employees for performing certain tasks, for particular skills they use, for using their own tools or incurring an expense for doing their job.