In yet another wage theft scandal, Woolworths is being investigated for underpaying its staff to the tune of $1M.
Wage Inspectorate Victoria said it had filed more than 1000 charges against the Woolworth Group for underpaying long service leave entitlements.
To be fair, Woolworths self-reported the issue in 2022, but it looks like not enough.
Wage Inspectorate Victoria has opened other long-service leave cases against Optus, CommSec and BankWest.
It’s not Woolworths’ first time at the rodeo. In 2010 it admitted it had underpaid staff $390 million. At the time the then Woolworths chair blamed Australia’s ‘out of control’ industrial award system.
Now my question is, why are they always underpaid? Why do you never, ever hear of staff being overpaid?
I will weigh in that supermarket payrolls are hard as different staff roles mean you are covering several awards, but there’s no excuse these days with the level of sophisticated payroll software on the market.
A mistake here or there is understandable, but $390 million is systematic theft.
Have you ever been underpaid?
.
