“They just wanted some free labour.”

When a frustrated Ashleigh Mounser was offered $10 to $12 an hour at three different businesses, she decided to vent on a Wollongong University Facebook site and asked fellow students if they had had similar experiences. She was quickly inundated with similar stories from other students.

Ashleigh claims she was underpaid at Kings Charcoal Chicken in Thirroul and offered just $10 an hour cash to work at Kings Charcoal Chicken in Corrimal. That matched the offer she got from the Crazy Noodle Shop in West Wollongong.

“Young people are exploited particularly in Wollongong because it is a university town and people are desperate for work and desperate for money. Employers have got a never-ending influx of students.”

Last year Ashleigh took a job at the age of 21 at the Square Cafe in Wollongong that paid $15 an hour cash in hand. She says she and her co-workers were denied breaks and penalty rates. Her salary was eventually increased to $17 an hour when she was promoted to “head waitress”, but her job was terminated soon after because she was “too expensive to pay”.

She trained people on unpaid work trials that lasted eight to 10 hours a day. “They would have three or four trials a week and as far as I knew they were overstaffed and not looking to hire anyone. They just wanted some free labour and didn’t want to have to pay people.”

What the employer says

Nick Noorie, director of the Kings Charcoal Chicken family businesses in Corrimal, Thirroul and Figtree, says employees aged 21 and over should be paid $18.99 an hour on a part-time basis and $23.74 as casuals. “This is a complaint they should take to Fair Work if they have a problem,” he says. “But this is the first time I’m hearing of it.”

Noorie denies any employee at his three charcoal chicken businesses had been paid below award rates or cash in hand. “If I find out anyone is doing that at my businesses, they would be sacked on the spot.”

Peter Yane, who owns the Crazy Noodle Shop, says he took over the business in recent months and pays employees $18 an hour. “I have only been here a few months,” he says. Yane says he is unable to provide contact details for the previous owner.

When asked about the free trials, a manager at Square Cafe says simply: “Really?”

He then refers Fairfax Media to another manager, who says he will need to speak to the original manager Fairfax Media had contacted. Further calls are not returned.

What Ashleigh should have been paid

United Voice union says Ashleigh was significantly underpaid for her work at Square Cafe in 2015, and her chicken shop work in 2016.

South Coast Labour Council secretary Arthur Rorris says the cash-in-hand payments made to Ashleigh were illegal. He estimates she was underpaid by more than $5 an hour as a head waitress.