So this is a story of quite a few years ago that I often tell my students as a warning to watch out for bad business practises and bosses.
When I was in uni I worked two jobs to pay my way through university. One was at a restaurant and the other was at a little cafe in the centre of the city. My restaurant job was great and they were completely above board, paid what they should pay and overal great bosses. Unfortunately, I just didn’t get enough hours there which is why I had to take another job at a cafe.
Now, the owners of the cafe were an older couple (50s) and would always hire young immigrants who were here on a ‘working holiday visa’. A common visa used in Australia by backpackers. (I was not a backpacker and am an Australian citizen) The turnover was high, also because the maximum time you are allowed to work for one employee on a WHV is 6 months. But the other reason for the high turnover was that the owners were absolutely crazy and controlling. For example, they had a camera pointed behind the counter and cash register and if the cafe was quiet for 5 seconds and you grabbed a glass of water or something they would call the store phone and yell about why you weren’t working (essentially they spent their days looking through the cameras and micromanaging everything you did.)
We also weren’t allowed to tell customers we were closing so had quite a few awkward moments where all the tables and chairs were stacked around single tables of people still sitting there 30 minutes after we’d officially closed.
But the biggest issue I had with them was that they did not pay my, or any of the other staff’s, super. (In case you don’t know we have this thing here in Australia called superannuation which I believe is the equivalent of a 401k which employers are required by law to pay 9.5% of your pay into to save up for retirement, regardless of whether the job is casual, part time or full time).
I had brought up the problem of not being paid my super multiple times and gave them the necessary paperwork. The always just dismissed me and said they’d get to it.
After about 8 months of working there my other job at the restaurant offered me more hours and I could finally quit this horrible workplace. So I did the decent thing and gave them 2 weeks notice. The day before it was meant to be my last day they yelled at me for something stupid (I can’t for the life of me remember what it was) and I snapped. I answered everything sarcastically. Yes OF COURSE how could I have POSSIBLY been so STUPID. This clearly pissed the owner off and she said she didn’t have a shift for me the next day after all and thus ‘fired’ me the day before my last day.
At this point they owned me just over $800 is super payments so I went online and reported them for illegally not paying my super.
About a week after all that my restaurant boss got a call from the tax office (called the ATO here) and they said on the phone that I had reported them, the restaurant, to the tax office and that you have to be careful who you hire. So of course my boss calls me upset asking what’s going on. I assure him I did not report him and I reported the other place and this must all be a misunderstanding. So I call the tax office asking whether they called my boss and they said they don’t do phone calls they only ever send letters. So SOMEONE pretended to be the ATO and called my restaurant boss to try and get me fired. (Gosh I wonder who would be crazy enough)
Thankfully my restaurant boss was awesome and fully believed me and I went on to work there for another 1.5 years.
Fast forward to 3 years later. I finally get a message from the ATO regarding their investigation into the unpaid super and it’s says: ‘Due to the business going into liquidation the super cannot be retrieved at this time’
So although I never got my money they went out of business. Apparently they also hadn’t been properly paying their suppliers and I’m guessing they tried to underpay many of the immigrants too.