SUPER RETAIL GROUP WORKER UNDERPAYMENTS BLOW OUT TO $61.2M

·         EWIN HANNAN
FEBRUARY 20, 2020

Super Retail Group, whose brands include Rebel and Super Cheap Auto, has short-changed workers by $8 million more than originally estimated, the third big retailer in days to announce significant employee underpayments.

Super Retail, which previously admitted to underpaying workers, said on Thursday the amount underpaid had jumped from $53 million to $61.2 million because workers had not received all overtime payments and allowances required under the retail award.

“They are both serious underpayments that we deeply regret and we have apologised to affected team members,” chief executive Anthony Heraghty said.

He said quarterly audits of employment arrangements would be conducted to improve compliance.

“We are confident that we have the controls in place to pick up any future anomalies should they occur,” he said.

Manager and workers are yet to be fully back-paid and remediation would be completed by June 30.

Attorney-General Christian Porter said employee underpayments were now “endemic” and while he believed the conduct was largely not intentional, “it’s still utterly hopeless”.

Wesfarmers and Coles said salaried employees would be required to “clock on and clock off” to record their hours worked to ensure they were paid correctly.

Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees Association national secretary Gerard Dwyer said employee underpayments had become an “epidemic, not only hurting hard working Australians but the reputation of the companies themselves”.

He said the Morrison Government should reinstate the rights of unions to spot check company payrolls.

“Unions did this for nothing — it did not cost the government or the taxpayer a cent,” he said.

Mr Dwyer said the Fair Work Ombudsman did not have the money or the resources to ensure workers were paid properly.

“While there may be a place for criminal penalties in serious cases, as proposed by the Morrison government, the focus should be on workers receiving their money speedily. Criminal proceedings would be expensive, protracted and do nothing to get workers back what they are legally owed in the short term,” he said.