Government IR actor not paying young worker
Damien Richardson, a former painter turned actor who features as a concerned parent in a Workplace Authority advertisement, has denied ripping off a young worker.
Erin Gebert, 20, has accused Damien Richardson of owing him about $2,000 in unpaid wages and superannuation.
The claims are being investigated by the Workplace Ombudsman.
Damien Richardson has denied not paying Erin Gebert, who he said worked for him as a sub-contractor.
"Erin Gebert's employment was based on sub-contractors and so Erin was a sub-contractor," Damien Richardson told ABC Radio.
"Under a sub-contractor scenario Erin Gebert got a fair deal."
In the ad, a beanie-clad Damien Richardson says, "I'm being told employers can rip off young kids."
"No they can't," says a post-it note from the Workplace Authority.
The ad has now been withdrawn.
Damien Richardson said sub-contractors weren't paid on a regular basis and Erin Gebert received his pay at the end of each job.
"There would be two or three weeks when we wouldn't work. Erin Gebert understood this," he said.
"He was never signed up with an apprenticeship for me.
"When you are a sub-contractor you have to invoice me and you also have to provide me with an ABN (Australian Business Number). If you don't provide me with an ABN I am still able to pay you but I am entitled to pay you only 50 per cent of what you are owed.
"He has never invoiced me and has never actually asked me for money."
Damien Richardson said Erin Gebert worked for him only on three jobs before working for his brother for 16 months.
He said he believed the matter had only come out now because Erin Gebert's father Peter Gebert was connected to the union movement.
But Peter Gebert denied any relationship with the ACTU.
"No actual relationship with them, no," he told ABC Radio.
"Erin came forward to me saying look what's happened with this fella, look what's happened to me, I didn't get paid and now he's out there preaching. If there's anything you can do Dad, get me some money."
Peter Gebert backed his son's claim that he had to resign from an apprenticeship with Damien Richardson because he wasn't being paid.
"The reality was he just wasn't being paid on a regular basis. He wasn't paid for the last three to four weeks that he worked and he certainly got no superannuation at all," he said.
He said his son had approached Damien Richardson for the money but was told to "go away and not come back again".
Workplace Ombudsman Nicholas Wilson said allegations against Damien Richardson were grave but it was important not to pre-judge anyone in the absence of solid evidence.
"The accusations that will be examined by the Workplace Ombudsman include that Damien Richardson had underpaid, and in some instances not paid at all, the young workers who worked for his suburban Melbourne painting business and that he had threatened some of the young workers with violence when they had challenged their dismissal and non-payment of their entitlements," he said in a statement.
ACTU president Sharan Burrow said taking the ads off air could not hide the fact the Work Choices laws "left young, vulnerable workers exposed to exploitation".
"They are rotten, they are rotten to the core," she told ABC Radio.
"They make people's lives extraordinarily insecure, they are changing our way of life and they have to go. The government has been caught out using an employer pretending he's a concerned dad. This is a bad joke."
Turkey Beach
