The Fair Work Ombudsman has secured penalties totalling $104,000 against the operators of a hotel and café in regional Victoria after nearly 100 staff at the venue were underpaid more than $320,000...

Ms Melotte admitted her involvement in underpaying 97 staff at Hotel Frangos and Café Koukla on Vincent Street in Daylesford a total of $321,202 between May 2017 and July 2019...

The underpaid workers included 15 juniors, aged between 15 and 20 at the time, and some visa holders, from countries including Nepal, Pakistan and Armenia...

The FWO investigated after receiving requests for assistance and discovered most of the underpayments related to 27 full-time employees who were paid salaries in weekly instalments irrespective of hours worked and when these hours were worked. This resulted in underpayments under the Hospitality Industry (General) Award 2010. Four of these workers were underpaid more than $20,000.

The two Nepalese cooks who were required to work unreasonable hours were underpaid individual amounts of $48,516 and $32,815.

The two cooks, who were on Regional Sponsored Migration Scheme visas, were required to work an average of almost 50 hours per week 90 per cent of the time. On one occasion, one of the cooks worked 74 hours in a week. The additional hours had a significant impact on the two cooks to the detriment of their own health, safety and personal circumstances.

The other underpaid staff were casuals who were underpaid entitlements including minimum wage, casual loading, overtime rates, penalty rates, no meal break penalties and minimum engagement pay.

The underpaid workers included food and beverage attendants and cooks, as well as two guest services staff and one clerical worker...

The company that directly employed the underpaid workers, Loelal Pty Ltd, was placed into liquidation in 2022. Ms and Mr Melotte were both sole directors of Loelal at different times...