Sandra Parker
October 30, 2019
The Fair Work Ombudsman says she is shocked that yet another large, publicly listed company has admitted to breaching Australia’s workplace laws on a massive scale.
In a statement to the ASX on Wednesday, Woolworths revealed it had failed to pay about 5700 of workers, mostly department managers, in line with the General Retail Industry Award.
The company estimates the total cost of remediation could be between $200 million and $300 million.
The Ombudsman said Woolworths joined Wesfarmers, Qantas, Commonwealth Bank, Super Retail Group, Michael Hill Jewellers and many others in failing to ensure that staff were receiving their lawful entitlements.
“The Fair Work Ombudsman will conduct an investigation in relation to Woolworths’ self-disclosure and hold them to account for breaching workplace laws,” Ombudsman Sandra Parker said.
Ms Parker expressed frustration at the upsurge in large-scale businesses admitting that they did not classify staff correctly, pay overtime or penalty rates, or complete annual pay reconciliations where they were required.
“Lately, we are seeing a disturbing number of large corporates publicly admitting that they have underpaid their staff. Some of these matters go back many years and several comprise millions of dollars owed to workers. This is simply not good enough,” she said.
“It is particularly concerning that many of these corporates have enterprise agreements in place that they negotiated but then failed to properly uphold the minimum standards.
“These sorts of careless missteps by business can be costly, often running up into the millions of dollars across an entire workforce.”
Ms Parker said that the non-compliance identified within many of these companies was caused by ineffective governance combined with complacency and carelessness toward employee entitlements.
Ms Parker reminded businesses of the broader reputational risk of breaching workplace laws, which can have a lasting impact on the bottom line.
“Companies and their Boards are on notice that we will consider the full range of enforcement options available under the Fair Work Act, including court enforceable undertakings and litigation where appropriate,” she said.
Woolworths chief executive Brad Banducci told the media he “fully expected” the underpayments to cut into his and his executive team’s bonuses for the coming financial year.
