They got a foreign worker in because locals in Australia were too expensive.
Still, local firm RedDot Brewhouse cut corners further by underpaying their foreign talent. This happened while the beer company was building its first brewery in Melbourne last year.
Inspectors from the Fair Work Ombudsman found the company underpaid a Filipino welder more than A$20,000 (about S$20,000) in the three months that he was hired to build the brewery.
The welder was supposed to receive about S$55,000 a year plus overtime and penalty payments, but that was slashed to $36,000 without his knowledge.
Investigators found that he was paid a grand total of nothing for almost half the hours that he was working.
He was also refused penalty rates for overtime, and working on weekends and public holidays.
RedDot has signed a pact to ensure future compliance with Australian workplace standards.
The firm says it will apologise to the worker and give him back-pay for the salary owed.
Australia’s workplace waatchdog has said that 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, and that minimum pay rates are non-negotiable.
