Deep down, Cal Stanley knew he was being ripped off.
But like many young workers, he felt too powerless and alone to do anything about it.
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The 21-year-old spent almost a year working as a casual kitchenhand at a pub in Footscray, putting in between 20 and 50 hours on any given week.
He was paid a flat $16.87 an hour – the part-time wage – but with no sick pay or holidays, and without penalty rates.
![Cal Stanley, who received $10,000 in back pay, says many young workers don't know they can get help.](/web/20161210185306im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/t/7/p/0/r/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gt7r9m.png/1481260523273.jpg)
"I always knew I wasn't getting what I should have," says Cal.
"But it's not like a corporate situation where you can speak to HR. They'll scare you off from ever causing a fuss. It can be quite intimidating."
The catalyst for change was when a large hospitality group bought the pub in early 2016Â and Cal approached the new managers to clarify his conditions.
Unsatisfied with their response, Cal did his own research and discovered just how much he was being underpaid: $5 an hour, plus hundreds of dollars in penalties for overtime and weekend work.
He enlisted the hospitality union United Voice, which used Cal's timesheets to calculate how much he had been underpaid over 11 months and fired a missive to the pub's owners demanding reimbursement.
To their surprise, the company responded promptly, admitting fault and agreeing in May to pay Cal his outstanding wage bill. All $10,294 of it.
It was a happy outcome for Cal, who now splits his working week between a new kitchen and an office job.
But he says the kind of wage abuse he suffered is endemic in hospitality and a ubiquitous experience for people his age.
"If you're a younger worker and you're just getting your first job, you don't want to stir anything up. You don't want to rock the boat," he says.
"A lot of times people will be in these situations where they feel like they can't do anything about it.
"They need to realise you can contact your union, you can go to Fair Work and get the ombudsman to look into it; there's so much support and people don't realise it's out there."