The New South Wales Labor leader Luke Foley has used Saturday’s state conference to announce a crackdown on wage theft, pledging to introduce the toughest fines in Australia following the 7-Eleven scandal.
Foley has also announced measures to support the not-for-profit education sector to build more schools, and renewed a pledge for regulation of the energy industry.
Labor’s laws would include the toughest penalties in Australia for wage theft, Foley told the NSW branch on Saturday.
Employers who commit “wage theft” by underpaying their staff could face jail time under an NSW Labor government, he said.
The scheme would include punishments for including head franchises, but would not target those who make innocent mistakes.
Rather, the new laws would punish businesses engaged in continued and systemic wage theft, including those who pay workers half the legal minimum wage, or pay for only half the hours worked.
“When there is systematic exploitation of workers in the workplace, government has a responsibility to intervene,” Foley said.
“Vulnerable young workers are being cheated out of a staggering amount of wages by unscrupulous bosses and it has to stop,” he said.
The promise comes after wage scandals at 7-Eleven, United Petroleum, and others.
“Our new laws won’t apply to genuine mistakes. Employers who do the right thing will benefit as they won’t be competing with under-cutting cheats,” Foley said.
“But we’ll go after that minority whose business model is based on exploitation.”
The NSW Labor conference is meeting over two days this weekend to debate a range of workplace relations issues including 10 days domestic violence leave.
The conference is expected to endorse a motion by the Australian Services Union in support of a minimum 10 days paid domestic violence leave to be enshrined in the national employment standards.
Federal Labor promised in 2015 it would legislate for five days family violence leave.
The opposition leader Bill Shorten will address the conference on Sunday when he is expected to outline a federal Labor government’s broad approach to tax as well as flesh out a new policy on taxing trusts.
