Rebel Sport, Supercheap Auto owner underpaid staff $32m

Patrick Hatch
February 12, 2019
The Age
The retail group that owns Rebel Sport, Supercheap Auto and Macpac says it underpaid store managers by around $32 million over the past six years by not applying overtime rates properly.
Super Retail’s chief executive Peter Birtles, who was due to stand down as CEO on March 31, said he would bring his departure date forward to February 20 in recognition of the “significance of this underpayment”.
“We are very disappointed that we have let these team members down and not met our standards, and we apologise to each person affected unreservedly,” Mr Birtles said.
Super Retail Group, which also owns the Rays Outdoors and BCF retail chains, said on Tuesday a recent review of its employment arrangements had uncovered the underpayments.
That review was launched last year after the company discovered it underpaid workers setting up new stores by $8 million, also by not applying penalty rates and other allowances to the overtime hours they worked.
“The issue with our retail managers reflects the same problem that we recently uncovered with our Set Up team members,” Mr Birtles said. “They are both serious underpayment that we deeply regret.”
Retail managers affected by the underpayments made up about 10 per cent of Super Retail’s workforce during the six-year period.
On Tuesday, Super Retail said it would recognise about $32 million to cover the cost of paying back managers what they are owed, plus about $11 million to cover interest and payroll tax.
The $43 million put aside to cover the backpayments represents about a third of its net profit last year ($128 million).
Super Retail said it was continuing to engage with the Fair Work Ombudsman about the underpayments after self reporting last year’s breach to the workplace watchdog.
Last week, Qantas admitted to underpaying about 55 of its office staff, by an average of $8000 a year over several years, by putting them on contracts rather than applying the award rate.