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.
But it will have to prove that the employer intentionally avoided paying a worker appropriate wages and penalties, superannuation or other entitlements.
“This doesn’t include honest mistakes,” a Fair Work spokesperson told ABC News.
[…]
Any individual found guilty could face up to 10 years in prison and a fine of $1.65 million, while liable companies could be fined up to $8.25 million.
Laws are written by rich often white men. Don’t be surprised when the law benefits people of their class.
The important point in this situation is that the ruling class is the owning class; the bourgeoisie. The racial and sexual composition of that class may change (and is already different in many countries), but we should not mistake that for a solution because until there is economic overhaul, the owning class is the class which determines and benefits from laws.
While you are correct that the most influential in Australia are rich and often also ‘white’ men, we must remember that these laws are ultimately written by politicians subject to capital owners, and written to benefit capital owners. That’s why wage theft was only a civil matter - because business owners of all stripes benefit from wage theft.