BREAKING: Woolworths found to underpay workers by up to $300 million
<p>Woolworths has been found to underpay nearly 6,000 of its employees by as much as $300 million due to non-compliance with the industry award.</p>
<p>In a statement released by Woolworths this morning, the company revealed that it has failed to pay approximately 5,700 of its salaried workers across its supermarkets and metro stores in compliance with the General Retail Industry Award.</p>
<p>The underpayments were identified by the company after it reviewed its workers’ salaries prior to implementing the company’s newest enterprise bargaining agreement.</p>
<p>Here, inconsistencies were identified between the workers contractual salary obligations and what they were entitled to be paid under the new award, according to the<span> </span><em><a rel="noopener" href="https://www.smh.com.au/business/companies/woolworths-underpays-workers-by-up-to-300-million-20191030-p535l5.html" target="_blank">Sydney Morning Herald</a></em>.</p>
<p>"The review has found the number of hours worked, and when they were worked, were not adequately factored into the individual salary settings for some salaried store team members," the company said.</p>
<p>"As a business we pride ourselves on putting our team first, and in this case, we have let them down. We unreservedly apologise," chief executive Brad Banducci said in a statement.</p>
<p>"The highest priority for Woolworths Group right now is to address this issue, and to ensure that it doesn’t happen again."</p>
<p>Underpayments could track as far back as 2010, and the company has estimated that the total cost of remediation is to be between $200 and $300 million.</p>
<p>The company will make the first backpayments to the affected workers before Christmas. </p>
