Aldinga salon knowingly breached hair and beauty award eight times, but out-of-hours contact did not breach the right to disconnect

A part-time hairdressing apprentice was underpaid more than $14,000 in minimum entitlements over 16 months at a salon in the Aldinga Shopping Centre, and eight of the nine award breaches she alleged have been found to be serious contraventions of the Fair Work Act 2009. The ninth, that the operator prevented her from exercising the right to disconnect, was not proven.

The apprentice was employed from 4 July 2024 to 31 October 2025. She filed a money claim on 2 December 2025. No defence was filed, the operator did not engage after conciliation, and there was no appearance at the hearing on 4 May 2026, without explanation. A separate application seeking pecuniary penalties for nine alleged serious contraventions of s.45 was filed on 19 January 2026.

Default orders made on 11 March 2026 required payment within 21 days of $13,453 for unpaid wage entitlements, $376 in compensation for unpaid superannuation contributions and $968 in pre-judgment interest. None of those amounts has been paid.

16 contracted hours, at least 17.5 hours worked each week

In South Australia an apprentice must be employed under a written training contract approved by the Skills Commission. Here the approved contract covered 16 hours a week. Deputy President Lieschke found that work beyond those hours could not lawfully be performed as an apprentice, so the lower apprentice rates in the award did not apply to it.

Because the applicant held a Certificate III in Beauty Therapy, which the court treated as equivalent to Certificate III in Beauty Services, she was entitled to hair and beauty employee level 3 rates for the non-apprentice work. Those rates began at $27.17 an hour for ordinary hours and $36.14 for Saturdays, increasing after 1 July 2025 to $28.12 and $37.40. She was paid the same rate for every hour worked, beginning at $21.74 an hour and increasing in stages to $28.55 from 25 August 2025. The apprentice rates she was paid were below the level 3 rates until 25 August 2025.

On overtime, the court found she worked at least 17.5 hours in every week, giving at least 1.5 hours of overtime a week, and more than three hours of overtime in 50 of the 56 weeks worked. Overtime was never paid.

The Deputy President also found breaches of the award through failure to pay the 33 per cent Saturday loading for ordinary hours worked on Saturdays, failure to provide complying written rosters 14 days in advance setting out start and finish times, failure to allow meal and rest breaks, failure to pay final wages and about $3,000 of accrued leave within seven days of the employment ending, failure to reimburse TAFE fees on time, and failure to make complying superannuation contributions. Contributions were late enough that the applicant’s superannuation fund advised her insurance was at risk.

All of the proven contraventions were found to be “serious” within the meaning of s.557A because they were knowingly committed. At the relevant time a single contravention by an individual carried a maximum penalty of $19,800, with a maximum of ten times that amount available for a serious contravention where appropriate.

Contact out of hours, but no prevention

The right to disconnect term, cl 14A of the award, was introduced in 2024 and began to apply to small businesses on 26 August 2025.

The applicant’s evidence was that there “was a consistent pattern of contact outside of working hours, including on days off, during trade school, and while unwell or on leave”, and that if one staff member did not respond, others would be contacted. She gave evidence that during a period of urgent medical treatment the operator “continued to contact me repeatedly via calls and messages” and “also attempted to contact my family, including calling my mother, in an effort to obtain information about my condition”.

Deputy President Lieschke accepted that after the clause became operative the operator “unreasonably and regularly contacted the applicant out of hours about work and unrelated matters”, and that the applicant found the contact unpleasant and intrusive and felt pressure to respond. He found she faced no consequence when she did not respond, and there was no other evidence of an attempt to prevent her from not responding.

Framing the test, the Deputy President said the question was whether the employer directly or indirectly prevented the exercise of the right, and that “the issue is not the same as whether the respondent repeatedly communicated with the applicant outside of work, or that it was unpleasant and intrusive, or that the applicant felt pressure to respond”.

On that basis the alleged breach of cl 14A was not made out.

What happens next

The applicant gave evidence that she raised her concerns with her apprenticeship mentor through Apprentice Support Australia in early 2025, then with Skills SA, then with the Fair Work Ombudsman, before filing in the court as a last option. She also gave evidence that the operator was continuing to run the salon and was employing two apprentices.

A second apprentice from the same salon brought similar underpayment and penalty proceedings, reported as [2026] SAET 107. That underpayment claim was undefended and payment orders were made. The two penalty applications were not heard together because the second application was not referred until this matter was close to trial.

The operator will have an opportunity to consider the liability reasons and respond before a hearing determines whether pecuniary penalties should be imposed and, if so, at what level. The decision distinguishes out-of-hours contact that the court accepted was unreasonable and intrusive from conduct that prevents an employee from declining to respond, which is the conduct prohibited by cl 14A.3.

Source: [2026] SAET 106

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