It’s a popular watering hole for local yuppies, but over in Australia, RedDot BrewHouse is appearing in headlines for the wrong reasons.
The craft brewer has been exposed for underpaying staff involved in the construction of their first brewery overseas in the Melbourne suburb of Truganina. The Sydney Morning Herald reports that RedDot BrewHouse is under investigation by workplace watchdog Fair Work Ombudsman for suspected exploitation.
One welder had his contract clearly breached when he was underpaid more than $20,000 in three months after he was recruited for the brewery’s construction. The Filipino national was denied penalty rates for overtime, weekend and public holiday shifts, and even had his initial agreed salary of $55,000 a year slashed to $36,000 without his knowledge.
Since Fair Work Ombudsman’s enforcement action against the Singaporean brewery, RedDot owner Kah Noe Ng has signed a workplace pact to ensure future compliance. Ng will have to apologise to the affected employee and back-pay him all outstanding wages and entitlements.
Ng has even been noted to prefer sourcing workers from overseas due to Australia’s high labour costs. He stated that he did not pay the employee for his additional hours because he found the work to be “disappointing and slow”.
“Migrant employers simply cannot undercut the minimum lawful entitlements of their employees based on what they think the job may be worth, what the employee is happy to accept, what other businesses are paying or what the job may pay in their country of origin,” said Fair Work Ombudsman Natalie James.
RedDot Brewhouse touts itself as Singapore’s first locally-owned, independent commercial microbrewery, with premises at Dempsey Road and Boat Quay. Their brewery in Melbourne aimed to have Victorian-made RedDot beer to be sold across Australia and exported to markets in China, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand. The exposé over underpaid staff isn’t exactly good publicity though.
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