Newly appointed Fair Work Ombudsman Anna Booth has vowed to use yet-to-be-legislated criminal penalties against employers who deliberately underpay or rip off their workers.
Ms Booth — who began as fair work cop last month — says the risk of tough criminal sanctions, including potential jail time, would be a major deterrent to dodgy bosses if proposed criminal wage theft laws are passed by federal parliament.
“Certainly once the law has passed and there is a criminal liability, as long as the criminal standard of proof has been met, then the criminal penalties could flow as well as in the ultimate case of imprisonment,” Ms Booth told the ABC’s AM program in an exclusive interview.
“It is important that the awareness is raised and there’s no doubt that there will be a sharper focus on behaviour in that circumstance.”
Ms Booth began her five-year term as ombudsman in September after extensive experience in workplace relations including eight years as deputy president of the Fair Work Commission from 2012 to 2020.
Ms Booth began her career in the trade union movement in the late 1970s in the clothing industry, witnessing cases of work underpayment and exploitation — paving her path to become Fair Work Ombudsman.
“Back then I observed on almost a daily basis, women being confined to their sewing machines, getting urinary tract infections and getting repetition strain injuries from their work,” Ms Booth said.
“In the clothing industry, I had seen the experience of workers being afraid to go to the toilet whilst they were working on sewing machines. So I’ve seen fear in the workplace. There are still large cohorts of workers who are afraid.”
As the mother of a daughter with an intellectual disability, Ms Booth is also hoping to eliminate discrimination and injustices for people with disabilities who she says should be welcomed and integrated and welcomed into the workplace.
Recently, the ombudsman’s office urged the Federal Court to seek a maximum penalty against the Commonwealth Bank in relation to alleged underpayments of $16 million.
Ms Booth said the maximum penalty stance was designed to send a message to major employers that worker underpayments would not be tolerated.
In recent years, the Fair Work Ombudsman has targeted a range of organisations for underpayments including Woolworths, Coles, Qantas and the ABC, which agreed to a $600,000 “contrition payment” and an enforceable undertaking to overhaul its timekeeping systems.
(ABC)
