A Bendigo Hungry Jacks outlet has been fined $46,200 for underpaying staff almost $105,000.

Chamdale Pty Ltd, which operates the burger franchise on the corner of High and Thistle streets in Bendigo, was found to have underpaid 180 employees, mostly juniors, a total of $104,946 between July 2005 and December 2009.

The largest single underpayment was $8,218, with 29 workers underpaid more than $1,000. Most of the underpayments were a result of Chamdale failing to provide the classification and pay rate upgrades employees were entitled to based on the length of their service, resulting in underpayments on minimum hourly rates, overtime and public holiday penalty rates, as well as annual leave entitlements and laundry allowances.

The Federal Magistrates Court noted that while Chamdale had relied upon information provided by Hungry Jacks‘ head office for its employee rates of pay, “some of those wage updates did not inform accurately or sufficiently and led to error”.

Federal Magistrate Norah Hartnett said there was a need to “send a message to the community at large, and employers particularly, that the correct entitlements for employees must be paid and that steps must be taken by employers (of all sizes) to ascertain and comply with minimum entitlements.”

Taking into account the fact that Chamdale had no ‘priors’ recorded against it for previous similar conduct, that it had undertaken to voluntarily rectify all underpayments and that it had engaged a specialist industrial relations lawyer and appointed a new payroll adviser, Federal Magistrate Hartnett imposed a penalty of 20 percent of the applicable maximum of $231,000.

Fair Work Ombudsman Nicholas Wilson said they will soon be launching a dedicated webpage to assist the franchise sector, with information and resources aimed at franchisors and franchisees.