Woolworths’ $300 million wage scandal expands to include Dan Murphy’s and BWS staff
Woolworths Group chairman Gordon Cairns has revealed that the Woolworths underpayment scandal – which saw close to 6000 workers underpaid by $300 million across a decade – also involved staff from liquor arms Dan Murphy’s and BWS.
Speaking to shareholders in Sydney today, Cairns said Woolworths had “fully expected” to discover more cases across the business, “and we have”, though “not to the same extent as in the supermarket business.”
Cairns felt that that the fact so many staff members were underpaid was “incredibly disappointing”, he said at today’s annual general meeting.
“It was brought to our attention by three of our team members in February this year. We immediately investigated, found their assertions about their individual circumstances to be correct, and we remedied.
“We then began an across-the-board investigation, which continues given we are checking every shift for every salaried team member back as far as this has been an issue or records exist.”
He proceeded to say that he and CEO Brad Banducci were “accept[ing] responsibility by voluntarily taking reductions in [their] pay” with Banducci forfeiting his short-term incentive while Cairns would face a 20 per cent reduction in his director fees.
Back in October, Banducci had said that he was fully prepared for his bonus to be cut due to the underpayment incident. Last financial year, he pocketed $2.66 million as well as $4 million in bonuses.
“I fully expect to have a conversation with the board on the consequences of this and I fully expect it will be impacting bonuses for myself and maybe there will be other things that come out of it,” he said.
“We apologise to our team, we’re going to make it right, but it’s a very complex issue.”
Law firm Adero Law has filed a class action against the grocery giant, saying the total amount is over $620 million.
“Adero is instructed that current and former Woolworths employees have suffered underpayments and systemic wage theft during their employment at Woolworths on a far greater scale than the retail giant has disclosed,” Adero’s website stated.
But Woolworths said it will “fully defend” the proceedings.
“In the context of its commitment to fully remediate all affected salaried team members, Woolworths Group believes the class action proceedings are without merit,” the company said.
“Woolworths estimates that the one-off impact for remediation is expected to be in the range of $200-300 million (before tax).”