68 Percent of Construction Apprentice Employers Broke the Law — and the FWO Just Recovered $750,000 to Prove It

If you are an apprentice or trainee in the building and construction industry, there is a better than even chance your employer is not paying you correctly.

That is the reality confirmed by the Fair Work Ombudsman today. In the 15 months to 31 March 2026, the regulator completed 76 investigations into employers of building and construction apprentices and trainees — and 68 percent were found to be non-compliant with workplace laws.

The result: more than $750,000 recovered for underpaid workers, including $415,943 from investigations and $342,119 from dispute resolutions.

These are not rounding errors. These are the wages apprentices earned and were never paid.

What the FWO Found

The investigations uncovered a clear pattern. The most common breaches affecting construction apprentices and trainees were:

• Underpaid hourly rates — being paid below the minimum rate for your classification and year of training
• Unpaid or underpaid overtime — working beyond your ordinary hours without the correct penalty
• Short-changed annual leave — not receiving the right entitlements when taking leave
• Wages not paid for time worked — hours on the tools that never showed up on the payslip
• Failure to reimburse training costs — your employer is required to cover certain training expenses, and many are not

The FWO issued 74 Compliance Notices off the back of these investigations, recovering $336,951 of the $415,943 total. When employers received a formal notice to fix underpayments, most complied. But the fact that it took a government investigation to get there tells you everything about the state of compliance in this sector.

Real Cases, Real Consequences

This is not just about statistics. Earlier this year, the FWO secured $73,242 in court penalties against a Canberra electrical contracting business and its director for workplace law breaches affecting two workers — one of them a junior apprentice who was just 18 years old at the time.

The court also ordered the company to back-pay the workers their full entitlements, including interest and superannuation.

That case followed a broader enforcement pattern the FWO has been running across 2025 and 2026. In the last week alone, the regulator has launched or concluded enforcement actions against four separate businesses for ignoring Compliance Notices — including cases involving migrant workers, visa holders, and young employees.

The message from Acting Fair Work Ombudsman Rachel Volzke has been consistent: “Where employers do not comply, we will take appropriate action to protect employees.”

Why Apprentices Are Particularly Vulnerable

Apprentices sit in a difficult position. You are learning a trade, often dependent on your employer for both your income and your qualification. Raising pay concerns can feel risky when your training pathway depends on the relationship.

The FWO recognises this. Apprentices and trainees are classified as a vulnerable cohort — workers who may not know their entitlements, may feel unable to speak up, or may not have the experience to spot when something is wrong on a payslip.

Construction compounds this. Long days, physically demanding work, and a culture that does not always encourage questions about paperwork. When you are exhausted after a shift, the last thing on your mind is checking whether your overtime was calculated at time-and-a-half or double time.

But those entitlements are yours. And the data shows they are being systematically underpaid.

What You Should Be Getting Paid

If you work in building and construction, your pay and conditions are likely covered by the Building and Construction General On-site Award 2020. Here are the key entitlements apprentices and trainees should check:

Hourly rates by year of apprenticeship. Your rate increases with each year of your apprenticeship. If you started a new year and your pay did not go up, that is a red flag.

Overtime rates. For most apprentices, overtime is paid at time and a half for the first two hours and double time after that. Saturday work and Sunday work have their own penalty structures.

Annual leave. You are entitled to four weeks of paid annual leave per year, and your leave loading (typically 17.5 percent) should be paid on top when you take it.

Travel and fares. Many construction apprentices are entitled to a daily travel allowance or fares reimbursement depending on the distance between their home and the job site.

Training costs. Your employer must cover or reimburse certain costs associated with your apprenticeship training. If you are paying out of pocket for things your employer should be covering, check your award.

Superannuation. Your employer must pay super at 12 percent of your ordinary time earnings. From 1 July 2026, super must be paid every payday — not quarterly — under the new Payday Super laws.

How to Check Your Pay

You do not need to be an employment lawyer to spot a problem. Here are three things you can do this week:

1. Compare your payslip to the award. Visit the Fair Work Ombudsman’s Pay and Conditions Tool at fairwork.gov.au and enter your award, classification, and year of apprenticeship. Compare the minimum rates listed against what appears on your payslip.

2. Check your overtime hours. Look at your timesheets or sign-on records. If you worked more than your ordinary hours in a week and your payslip does not show overtime at a higher rate, ask your employer to explain.

3. Verify your super. Log in to myGov and check your super fund balance. If contributions are not showing up within a reasonable timeframe after each pay period, your employer may be behind.

If something does not look right, you have options.

What to Do if You Are Being Underpaid

Contact the Fair Work Ombudsman. Call the Fair Work Infoline on 13 13 94 or visit fairwork.gov.au. The service is free, and an interpreter is available on 13 14 50 if you need language support. You do not need to give your name if you just want general advice.

Talk to your union. If you are a member of the CFMEU or another construction union, they can help you understand your entitlements and raise concerns on your behalf.

Keep records. Save your payslips, timesheets, rosters, and any written communications with your employer about pay. If a dispute ends up with the FWO or in court, records make all the difference.

Know your protections. It is illegal for your employer to take adverse action against you — including dismissal, reducing hours, or changing duties — because you made a complaint or inquiry about your pay. If this happens, report it to the FWO immediately.

The Bigger Picture

The 68 percent non-compliance rate is not a one-off finding. It sits within a broader pattern of workplace law breaches across industries that rely on young, casual, or migrant workers. The FWO recovered more than $1.34 billion in underpayments to over 650,000 workers in the two years to June 2025.

Construction is a sector that employs hundreds of thousands of apprentices and trainees every year. If more than two in three employers are getting it wrong, this is not an isolated compliance issue. It is a systemic one.

The good news is that regulators are acting. The FWO continues to run proactive compliance campaigns in construction, and the penalties for non-compliance are getting larger. But enforcement alone cannot fix this. Workers need to know their rights and have the confidence to check.

Your trade is worth learning. Your pay is worth checking.