A Perth security company has been penalised in Court for underpaying its guards more than $200,000.

A penalty of $81,270 has been imposed against the Rockingham-based security company in the Federal Court, as a result of legal action by the Fair Work Ombudsman.

In addition to the penalty, the company has back-paid 22 security guards a total of $205,408 it underpaid them between December, 2014 and January, 2016.

Underpayments of individual workers ranged from $227 to $20,174.

The Fair Work Ombudsman discovered the underpayments when it conducted a self-initiated audit of the company in 2015 as part of proactive campaign in Perth’s southern suburbs.

Fair Work inspectors found that the guards - including 13 who performed permanent night work - were paid flat hourly rates of between $21.50 and $24 for static guard work and $25 for patrol work.

This led to the guards being underpaid their minimum hourly rates, casual loadings, overtime pay and penalty rates for night, weekend and public holiday work under the Security Services Industry Award.

In his judgment on the matter, Justice Michael Barker dismissed the company’s submission that it thought paying flat rates above lawful minimum rates for ordinary hours would counteract the different rates of pay for other periods as “at best, a misunderstanding of the law, but a lame excuse”.

Justice Barker accepted that there may have been no blatant design to circumvent the law but found that there was no real excuse for the contraventions, which occurred without any regard for the award requirements.

Justice Barker also ordered the company to commission workplace relations training for its managers.

The company back-paid the guards after the Fair Work Ombudsman commenced legal action.

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