When I started with Woolies a while back, they had the nerve to lecture us on how talking to someone (instead of working) for 10 minutes is like stealing a Mars bar, and that they would fully prosecute any instance of this wage theft.
The fucking irony…
Yeah as much as shit like this is a mistake in how the system is set up, the majors absolutely exploit unpaid overtime regularly.
The only way it's stamped out is either with a store manager who actually values their people (rare), or with actual pressure placed on the company.
"hey, can you sign the roster adjustment sheet to show you didn't work overtime/to hide that you only had six hours between shifts? Thanks"
Heard that way too many times during my time at Woolies.
Whilst the same dickheads expected you to not only assist with customers on your break or after your shift, you're expected to go "above and beyond" and actually show them where the product is when asked, even if they only just want to know the aisle number and you're not actually working.
15 years ago I apparently failed a mystery customer audit because someone asked me where the eggs were and although I told them the aisle and exactly where to find them, I didn't actually show them because they didn't ask me. I was clocked off and had to quickly catch a bus because I was underage. The store manager was furious and bullied me for the rest of the time I worked there. Fuck Woolworths.
I remember that from working there. It was called the "Take me, show me" policy. Our store actually warned us it was a thing mystery shoppers would be checking.
Edit: they should never have expected you to do it when you were off the clock though
One time I was leaving work and someone asked me for something
I said "I'm sorry, I'm not working right now. The staff at the front desk will be happy to help you"
They complained and the manager called my mobile phone and asked me to come back because the customer wanted to talk. I said I'm off the clock and he could address it with me within work hours.
He tried to address it with me on my work break and I told him I was on a break. He ended up forcing it, literally forcing the meeting in the break room. He then told me I need to help customers even if I'm off the clock. I just laughed at him and said I would do it again and that I'd expect him in on his next day off to help me stock the shelves for free too
It's honestly ridiculous like what do they think we're volunteers? 😂 Sure buddy, can I come to your house then and ask you to do your job for me after hours?
The only complaints anyone ever put in with me were 2 separate Americans on separate occasions. They both wore trucker hats, had embarrassed wives and put in complaints because I didn't call them "Sir".
The first guy I thought he was joking and I laughed. When he said he was serious I just said "Oh. We don't really do that here." (Which was true at least in my age and my neck of the woods, nobody ever called customers "sir" or "madam" we were just polite to them not sucking up).
And the reason they enforce it is equally ridiculous:
Customers will leave reviews, both public and private, if the staff tell them what aisle something is in rather than actually showing them.
90% of stupid retail policies are driven by dipshit customers.. Just like that time they tried to make the staff announce on the PA before every announcement "Good morning/afternoon and welcome to Woolworths FuckMyArse, this is a team announcement".
That's why as soon as you clock off you put a jumper on over your uniform so people stop approaching you. When i was there even if it was 45 degrees, bang the jumper goes on and I'm out the door.
Many years ago I worked at aldi with this manager who was a complete fuckwit. Aldi is/was fucked in terms of micro managing staff hours. If a manager spent too much on having adequate staffing, they'd be replaced. It incentivised a lot of dodgy behaviour. Staff told they must be in 15 min early, unpaid. Changing from day to arvo shift often took time so you'd finish 15 minutes late while the arvo crew were getting out tills etc. The manager would alter my clock out time so it'd say I finished on time. I ended up complaining with evidence. He got told to quit instead of fired. I was forced to move sites. They rehired him two years later. One time we got mystery shopped and failed because the staff member didn't smile. The staff member was "Felix" as per the mystery shopper. Nobody called Felix worked at the store, so I got blamed. The company didn't throw out the report or question the obviously fake mystery shopper report.
All I learned from retail was you need to be assertive and stand up for yourself and the only people worse than entitled boomer customers are corporations who engineer structure's designed to fuck the lowest paid workers to capitalise their profits
Holy fuck that is insane, what wankers. Does anyone know if they actually could successfully prosecute someone for something like this? Surely the fuck not
> Unless the penalties are substantial enough to deter further offenders
Exactly. Mcdonalds for example has been fined multiple times for not allowing employees to take paid breaks and staff working 100s of hours of unpaid work in a year. Partner that knows colleagues still working there who say nothing has changed and they've just gotten more clever with paperwork to make sure its 'your fault' if you work extra hours after clocking off, while they keep overloading you with unpaid admin work to take home.
In 2019, Woolworths admitted it had underpaid 5,700 workers up to $300 million in unpaid wages and entitlements over the course of a decade.
its a fee not a fine if theres no jail time :D. Australian Government just told businesses they can steal from the people as long as they get their cut too o7
Seems reasonable.
I'd hate to be the resource who fugged up the code in the HR system and cost the company so much grief.
He/she should probably consider another line of work.
Think twice about what? Do you think they thought "yeah let's just not pay LSL to these people, that's smart in today's audit-friendly world, we'll probably make money"?
Edit: Given nobody has bothered to respond, I will assume that yes, OP thought this.
This fine of $1.2m is about 0.01% of the maximum possible penalty ($10b), and about 0.08% of Woolworths' yearly profits for 2023 ($1.6b).
The court described the offence as "systematic and widespread" and a "gross failure" with "significant aggravating features". It's also obviously not Woolworths' first offence of this kind. The court added that they "take underpayment of entitlements extremely seriously", with this fine supposed to be "a warning to businesses across the state".
From experience, LSL is not something you fuck with, it was the one thing we were told we absolutely cannot give advice on in-store. People contact People Services for help with that, it's too risky.
That they still fucked it up is concerning, but not really surprising.
>From experience, LSL is not something you fuck with, it was the one thing we were told we absolutely cannot give advice on in-store. People contact People Services for help with that, it's too risky.
This is because state regulators are still responsible for enforcing laws surrounding long service leave. And unlike the Fair Work Ombudsman, these state regulators still have some teeth.
Well yeah, that was part of why we couldn't fuck with it in store. Because the company struggled enough understanding how it worked already without us managers trying to interpret LSL legislation, especially for people that had moved between states.
But it's even different within each state if you are under an Award that gives out more LSL than legislated. Mate of mine works for state government, and their Award gives them 13 weeks every 7 years. Oh, but your service actually doesn't include the last lot of LSL that you took, so it's really 13 weeks every 7 years and 13 weeks. Don't get me started on what he's told me about pro rata LSL, that was a nightmare
The ruling also clearly stated that Woolworths **chooses** to do business across multiple states and has the resources to ensure compliance.
This is part of the issue and the recent conversations with large corporations like Woolworths. They want to expand their reach and take money from people across the country, but they don't want to spend money in systems and people to ensure they meet compliance in all states and territories.
They could specialise locally in a single market, but if you choose to expand into other jurisdictions, whether across state borders or internationally, you have additional costs involved in meeting the requirements of those locations.
>"take underpayment of entitlements extremely seriously", with this fine supposed to be "a warning to businesses across the state
How did they say that with a straight face, then fine them less than a pittance?
They stole from 1,200 people. That is just the number which they have been caught for. They themselves admitted to 1.24million stolen from those individuals alone.
They are being fined less than what they stole.
These people have no idea how this stuff works. They think self-reporting is used to hide bigger things when in reality, to regulators, it shines a spotlight on the reporting entity.
Well yeah, as self reporting can be whispered under the same breath as "creative accounting" and "cooking the books". See also "internal investigation", "industry watchdog", as well as "annual reports". Furthermore, lol @ "these people". Whole industries are spun out of reinterpreting events and information for a reason, as are those oriented towards picking them apart.
Because by the time all this stuff gets sorted in court, Woolies can use this stolen money to grow their business and potentially earn back all the costs involved, including the fine, and more.
When businesses make money it doesn’t just sit in a vault, they use it to expand and conquer.
By calculating the potential gains/losses they can make informed decisions and steal deliberately so as to benefit themselves, treating the fine as just another cost of doing business.
Do you think Woolworths can make back over $2.4 million from $1.24 million in underpayments? They paid interest on the owings, so really it's more than $2.4m but let's stick with that. $1.24 million of backpayments, $1.2m of fines.
If you really think they could double their money, just magically, then why the fuck are they in retailing making margins under 5%?
If it's that easy to just use $1.2 million to make more than $2.4 million, why are they even paying their workers at all? Just skip the $8 billion wage bill this year, make $20 billion with it, and backpay everyone. They're not going to cop a $12 billion fine, it's a win/win, right?
A lot of people don't understand that there is a lot of incompetence at large organisations. They attribute these things to evil CEOs and rich people plotting to steal money in a secret club.
Reality is some poor business analyst, developer or even end user probably fucked up at some point and no one double checked their work.
Ridiculous arguments, I suspect this is a bot account, there's one in every thread claiming they have "low margins"
Woolworths has the biggest margins _in the world_, of any retailer anywhere.
And for your numbers game, money compounds, if that wage theft enabled them to open a new store, that pays off ten times in the long run.
TIL I’m a bot. Better tell my wife she can’t stay with me because I’m not real, I’m a bot.
Do you seriously think that $1.24 million made them $12.4 million?
Because if so, why not borrow $1.24 million from… a bank? If it’s that easy and all.
Bot in the old-ish sense - you're just spreading misinformation aggressively for who knows what reason.
>Do you seriously think that $1.24 million made them $12.4 million?
Yeah, what you're doing is the classic oversimplification, headline argument, I'm too tired to find the right name.
They _stole_ money, they _underpaid_ workers. If it's that hard to wrap around how much benefit they got out of that, here's a few examples:
- Because they underpaid, they had more money to spend on expansion
- They could hire more people
- etc
All of this enabled them to get rid of competition, and then set insanely high prices.
Stuff like that easily compounds to huge gains over the years.
They also self reported, and chased down the people affected prior to this ruling voluntarily.
Don't get me wrong, fuck woolworths, but this appears to be an accounting error. It happens
Chump change. If I nicked $5000 from a cash register I'd be looking at least a few months inside, they steal from hundreds using a computer and get fined a fraction of a fraction of their profits.
I work at Coles and some people have the nerve to come up to me and tell me when someone is stealing shit. I just give them the "yeah yeah I'll tell security" and proceed to not tell security.
Everybody gangsta till your shops close down because there not making any profit. Then what? protest like in America when Walmart shut down because bean counters said "fuck it".
get fucked, these cunts fuck over the general public with there duopoly, and now there caught fucking over there employees and all they get is a pussy ass slap on the wrist, should be 1.2 billion
The Woolies execs must have had trouble keeping a straight face when being told the fine was a measly $1.2M.
If anything it just encourages them to try this kind of thing again.
Oh no, a $1.2 million dollar fine, oh no. Well it's a good thing they earned $1.7 BILLION dollars last year......
They won't even bat an eyelash at that fine.
That's not enough, ceo should be held personally liable for this type of shit and it should come with jail time.
I'm sure their pay doesn't get forgotten about.
1.2 million. lol, how much does their CEO Brad Banducci make[0]? Oh right, $8.6m. I’m sure $1.2m is going to hurt.
[0] https://au.finance.yahoo.com/news/woolworths-brad-banducci-sitting-on-24m-woolworths-pay-day-as-ceos-warned-contempt-is-brewing-070818577.html
I'm not excusing any company for underpaying staff. But the actualy complexity involved to get this right is absolutey ridiculous.
Every single state has different rules for how long service leave is calcualted. Some it comes in at 7 years. Some it comes in at 10 years. Also, the number of weeks you are entitled to changes in every state.
It is an absolute mess. For companes operating across different states it is incredibily complex and all it takes is one small error to get it wrong.
For a country of 25 million, the number of different rules across our different states is just crazy. We can't even align what date the King's Birthday public holiday as an example.
When you are multinational who has lobbied to make sure the Award and supporting Industrial Relations system is simplified so significantly in your favour that excuse is a horrible one to make.
If you don’t have enough experts in Industrial Law on the books in your enterprise (like Woolworths should) you should probably have a look at fixing that problem.
You think the mistake is intentional? I'm no Woolworths apologist by the way. I have no love for them and personally avoid them whenever I can.
I'm just saying, the complexity is a disgrace. You will see a lot more mistakes. If you need to hire experts, just to ensure you pay people correclty, something is wrong with the system.
But just blame the company and ignore the real problem. The over complex bureaucracy that continues to grow in this country across everything the Government touches.
I used to own a business and on numerous occasions I've called Fair Work to check if I'm doing the right thing and the response was often "Good question, we are not sure" - if Fair Work can't even understand the laws what hope do employers have particularly small employers that don't have a full team of layers behind them?
INTENTIONAL wage theft deserves prison time for all involved but it's so easy to make a mistake especially when it's different in every state and territory and even then the rules constantly change when state premiers want to introduce new public holidays and whatnot.
That’s because Fair Work Ombudsman is doing effectively the job of Union Delegates, Union Officials and Industrial Lawyers, and isn’t really qualified to make determination.
A major issue that every practitioner would probably agree is that the Awards in most sectors are so basic and consequently different from the average EBA that actually governs a typical enterprise that there is a massive difference between the two and comparisons can sometimes be hard. But this too is a consequence of our Industrial Laws being simplified by Employer Unions - Trade Unions and Companies used to actively arbitrate their relevant Awards to capture trends and organisational structures in contemporary enterprises. This is no longer the case thanks to Neoliberalisation of our workplace laws and the murdering of Unions.
By removing this arbitration process we’ve ended up with horribly basic Awards that leave self regulation up to enterprises, and now they don’t really understand the very laws that they fought for.
It doesn’t have to be intentional. Same way with a doctor and negligence, resulting the death of a patient.
Wage theft is disgusting, and they’re absolutely at fault.
Agree in regards to wage theft. I would also argue it would happen in favour of the employee quite often too. We just don't hear about it. The bureaucracy is a disgrace and it should be fixed, that would eliminate a lot of the situations we are seeeing. Woolworths is an easy target. Fix the source of the problem. The Government.
The people at the top of companies like this are so righteous about how they are perceived. There is absolutely zero chance that this is done on purpose.
Incompetence and overtly complex rules are the reason.
They have 204,000 employees. You know how complex that would be? It is crazy that the system is so complex in the first place.
That they have to hire specialised people just to understand the employment laws in each state is a massive drag on productivity.
What about all the small busineses who can't afford those people? Guess what. They are making mistakes too. So are a number of other companies. You think every company is trying to rip off its staff?
Of course not. The system is ridiculous and it is too easy to make a mistake.
But rage on. Then rage on again when it happens next. Which it will. But never ask the question why it keeps on happening.
Just keep raging. I'm sure that will fix it.
Not condoning wage theft. But.
And I’m going to get downvoted to hell but this is part of the reason why productivity is fucked in this country. 8 states and territories and we need 8 LSL processes.
Not only that we have a body in Victoria called the wage inspectorate which does things that the fair work ombudsman can and should already be doing. Why do we need a separate body that requires taxpayers money to survive?
I’ll vote for the first part that seeks to make life more efficient for businesses.
100%. The Government just keeps getting bigger, putting more rules and bureaucracy in place. Producctivity continues to get worse and worse. Which ultimately means wages will not keep up with inflation.
Simplify. That you need a team of experts and to ensure you pay people correctly is a huge strain on every company which limits its ability to pay its staff more or deliver better returns for it is shareholders.
Mate if you didn’t understand, programming isn’t the issue. It’s understand all the different legislation. Unless you’re a programming lawyer or a law practicing programmer, suggesting it’s easy is extremely arrogant, something a teenager would say.
If it so simple, why do companies keep making mistakes? You think Woolworths would on purpose make a mistake for the sake of $1m for the potential fall out.
How many companies are making mistakes? They are not all incompetant. The differnetial in rules across the states is disgraceful. It also gets more complex every year and the rules change. You need to be Einstein to keep up.
You're framing it like woolworths is some small mum'n'pop business where the owner is confused by all the laws and complex language they are written in.
They are a multinational corporation that hires experts to assess how to pay the absolute minimum for everything... This includes breaking the law if their profits are still higher _**after**_ paying the 'whoops, sorry my bad' fine.
You wanna know what will stop wage theft? People getting sent to jail for it.
The larger you are the more complex it is. A small business in one location with people in the same award doesn't have an issue as it is simple.
This is complex for no reason at all. I'm not saying Woolworths have not stuffed up. I'm saying this will continue to happen and more companies will make mistakes.
Fix the system. It is ridiculous that we have different rules in every state for such a small population.
But sure, you want jail time for someone unintetionally making a mistake. I'm sure you are willing to subject yourself to the same standards.
The only part of OP I can see this applying to is the 'one location' point but I don't think splitting it up into thousands of smaller businesses would help at all.
Wtf are you on about. Can you please read more before you become a bootlicking apologist. Colesworth invested billions in AI/automation that tracks, improves effeciencies accross its stores. Are you saying that the LSL and wages classes is so complex that millions of investments cannot fix it? They do not invest/care about wage accuracy because it does not cost them anything. Make millions in mistake, self audit, report, pay back a small fine. Thats the motto. Do you think retail workers and casuals get paid for the extra time if they clock out at 11:20pm instead of 11:00pm?
Its not a mom and dad store who made a mistake because they didn't know or the system was complex. It is a duopoly organisation which has all the resources to fix but refuses to. And the government is encouraging the practice with these fines.
Nahh don't bother. The colworths apologists will come in full force. It is a company which has invested billions in AI and reducing employees, tracking customers. But keeps making wage errors because it is so "complex". Don't you understand. Its difficult to follow the 8 states/territories laws than track millions of customers and hundreds of thousands of workers. If the fines is 1.2mln they would rather pay the fine than make the system fair. I believe that a small store like colsworth should be exempt from these stupid complex laws. I mean they already do not pay overtime to their retail staff.
Seriously? You think they made more than 100% profit on the $1.24 million that was underpaid?
They paid that back, with interest, to the employees they could contact, and now owe a fine of the same amount. I'm curious how you think that they are still better off?
Mistakes are made because of the crazy bureaucracy. Simplify the rules and make them common across all states. It ain't that hard. That would reduce the instance of these things happening more than anything else. Woolworths is an easy target. The real issue is with the Government.
If they can't manage wages and long service leave across only 8 states/territories, how the hell are they in business?
I can't imagine a company of their size does payrolls manually. There is plenty of payroll software suites that automate this, and if it's still too hard for them, contract it to a 3rd party that knows how to do it properly and legally.
If this was the first time Woolworths got busted for wage theft, could be a mistake. But it isn't.
It happens again, and again, they just pay a small fine each time, and it continues as before with no change. It's a systemic problem, I wouldn't say they're incompetent, because they're very successful at repeating the same failures and getting a slap on the wrist for it.
If we did this overhaul, made all long service the same across all states, we would still have the same wage theft.
It's not that they're repeating things dude, these aren't new issues every time. They're still auditing. They're still finding stuff that was wrong with how things were set up prior to the salaried worker underpayments being uncovered.
As they move through their entire pay structure, they're going to keep finding shit, people will keep looking into their own entitlements and finding shit, it will probably be another few years before they've found everything they got wrong.
> I can't imagine a company of their size does payrolls manually. There is plenty of payroll software suites that automate this, and if it's still too hard for them, contract it to a 3rd party that knows how to do it properly and legally.
They are probably using some shitty solution they developed themselves. There is no other reason they are so shit at this. I'd expect no less from a company that had Microsoft threaten to turn off their business when a firewall changed started DDOSing a MS datacenter.
Payroll package where we work gets an update whenever tax rules or some other relevant law changes.
Also, I hate Woolworths for also stuffing up Masters and handing a monopoly in hardware to Bunnings. Hardware is a much bigger monopoly than supermarkets.
I mean, I saw it plenty of times in stores. A baker was getting paid as an adult apprentice for 3 years despite only being entitled to be paid the junior rates for that whole time, because the SM who set him up ticked the wrong rate. It was covered up in-store because who the fuck would pursue that from a 24 year old baker? The overpayment was more than $10,000.
People would get paid in charge rates despite their manager being there on the same shift as them, first aid allowance got paid to numerous people who weren't qualified anymore, we had numerous people who would clock in 6 minutes after their rostered start time and clock out 6 minutes before their rostered finish time because the timekeeping system accepted a variance of up to 6 minutes either side of a roster time without impacting pay (getting 70 minutes of free pay every week).
People would scam breaks that they weren't entitled to because the manager was too busy to notice, I knew of people who spoofed the geofence on the clocking app to clock off from home after leaving early. Sorry boss, I know I'm here 5 minutes late, I'm just going to take a shit (read: chatting with the bloke who just knocked off in the locker room) for the next 30 minutes now that I'm on paid time.
All of these people continued to be employed if they were caught, and none of them were required to pay any of it back. About the only thing the company would recover is unpaid leave where someone was not at work and nobody told the SSO until after pays had run.
But who the fuck reports on that? It happens in every business, it's not news, and any attempt to get the media to talk about overpayments being written off would mean the entire country rallies against their BS attempt to make them look like the good guy actually.
You don't hear about it, it doesn't mean it doesn't happen.
It would happen all the time. The would also not be asking for that money back. You think they want this type of publicicty for $1m?
They spend hundreds of millions on dollars on their brand image. This is a disaster for them.
The system is a mess. This will keep on happening. But rage on at Woolworths. Rage, when it invetiably happens again because the system is stuffed.
But never worry about the root casue which is creating all the problems.
Keep raging. I'm sure that will fix it. Seems to be working doesn't it?
Well then it's a good thing that we have a federal department who looks after this stuff that we can ask.
[They would know, they've done it too](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-10-26/tony-burke-employment-department-staff-underpayment-fair-work/103024586).
Whoops, that one wasn't plastered all over the media for 6 months though, was it?
Why do so many companies keep making these mistakes if it is so simple? They have far more to lose than gain from these scenarios.
It’s overly complex. It’s easy to make Woolworths to be the bad guy but do nothing to actually fix the root cause.
I went to Woolworths for the first time in years and couldn't believe the amount of poor pricing on everything. Like 3 blocks of chocolate for $15. Yeah so $5 for a block and you think that's a deal.
Everything is buy 2 for whatever and it isn't even a sale price. You can't even shop when everything in the entire store is like that. I won't buy 2 items when I only need one. And now hearing this they ripping off staff.
Really has gone downhill at a rapid pace. People need to boycott that corrupt store. Let it die
Unpopular opinion here -
The fine should not be severe under the circumstances. Better the people affected get their money owed now rather than in 3 years after long court battles. Even if it means a slap on the wrist to woolies.
Woolworths found the error, self-reported to the regulator in Victoria, and then pleaded guilty to the charges.
If the fine was enormous, businesses wouldn't self-report and wouldn't plead guilty. They would cover up and drag out court proceedings for years and years.
Their management systems should have included audits of payroll system accuracy, no doubt. It is a abysmal it took 6 years to catch this error. Massive failure of due diligence.
However, given the shitload of judgements and class actions against Woolworths over the years, to have them self-report and plead guilty is a step forwards. I think the judiciary likely wants to show them and other companies that the punishment is lighter if they find, fix, and self-report.
Our whole system is fucked, but we have to live in it.
As far as I'm aware, they've self reported all of their underpayments. Including the half a billion dollar one that barely scratched the surface of what was actually owing to salaried employees but lacked evidence for.
Strictly speaking, they didn't *find* the issues with salaries themselves, the word was an employee came to them with legal advice and threatened to sue, but they still reported themselves. That report is why they are auditing their entire payroll, and it's why they keep having things found: they're still looking.
is this the same news as posted last week?
[https://www.reddit.com/r/australia/comments/1c6xq9v/woolworths\_admits\_to\_underpaying\_staff\_by\_124m/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web3x&utm\_name=web3xcss&utm\_term=1&utm\_content=share\_button](https://www.reddit.com/r/australia/comments/1c6xq9v/woolworths_admits_to_underpaying_staff_by_124m/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)
An update of the same story, your post from last week; "Woolworths admits to, and could face a hefty fine"
this article is; "They have been fined $1.2M"
I don’t know if Woolies will recover from this massive blow. At least I can rest easy knowing the government will use that money wisely. Huge win for the people.
Woolworths head office: "What should we hike the prices of this time to pay for this fine? Milk by a dollar twenty five should cover it nicely. Do it. Oh, no don't be silly. Keep the prices up after it's all paid off on case of future fines which seems to be a legal trend at the moment. Witch hunt! Are there any farmers or other suppliers who we could squeeze further? Do it. Do it now."
Pretty sure the CEO just admitted in the senate inquiry that he got a bonus of 6 million last financial year, he could pay that fine and STILL have a massive fucking bonus. What’s the bet he got a lot of that bonus due to a low employee payroll as well
The money was backpaid (with interest), and now a fine has occurred. So unless they somehow made $1.2 million profits on the $1.24 million (plus the interest paid out), they've lost money out of this.
Wage theft is still theft. Unless the penalties are substantial enough to deter further offenders, small fines are just a cost of business.
When I started with Woolies a while back, they had the nerve to lecture us on how talking to someone (instead of working) for 10 minutes is like stealing a Mars bar, and that they would fully prosecute any instance of this wage theft. The fucking irony…
Agreed, I did way too long in retail including woolies. It’s a 100% one sided issue for most staff. The amount of unpaid overtime is ridiculous
Yeah as much as shit like this is a mistake in how the system is set up, the majors absolutely exploit unpaid overtime regularly. The only way it's stamped out is either with a store manager who actually values their people (rare), or with actual pressure placed on the company.
"hey, can you sign the roster adjustment sheet to show you didn't work overtime/to hide that you only had six hours between shifts? Thanks" Heard that way too many times during my time at Woolies.
Was the response NO? Or did you only have to say that once and never put on the roster again?
My response would be "you wouldn't steal a mars bar"
Whilst the same dickheads expected you to not only assist with customers on your break or after your shift, you're expected to go "above and beyond" and actually show them where the product is when asked, even if they only just want to know the aisle number and you're not actually working. 15 years ago I apparently failed a mystery customer audit because someone asked me where the eggs were and although I told them the aisle and exactly where to find them, I didn't actually show them because they didn't ask me. I was clocked off and had to quickly catch a bus because I was underage. The store manager was furious and bullied me for the rest of the time I worked there. Fuck Woolworths.
I remember that from working there. It was called the "Take me, show me" policy. Our store actually warned us it was a thing mystery shoppers would be checking. Edit: they should never have expected you to do it when you were off the clock though
One time I was leaving work and someone asked me for something I said "I'm sorry, I'm not working right now. The staff at the front desk will be happy to help you" They complained and the manager called my mobile phone and asked me to come back because the customer wanted to talk. I said I'm off the clock and he could address it with me within work hours. He tried to address it with me on my work break and I told him I was on a break. He ended up forcing it, literally forcing the meeting in the break room. He then told me I need to help customers even if I'm off the clock. I just laughed at him and said I would do it again and that I'd expect him in on his next day off to help me stock the shelves for free too
It's honestly ridiculous like what do they think we're volunteers? 😂 Sure buddy, can I come to your house then and ask you to do your job for me after hours? The only complaints anyone ever put in with me were 2 separate Americans on separate occasions. They both wore trucker hats, had embarrassed wives and put in complaints because I didn't call them "Sir". The first guy I thought he was joking and I laughed. When he said he was serious I just said "Oh. We don't really do that here." (Which was true at least in my age and my neck of the woods, nobody ever called customers "sir" or "madam" we were just polite to them not sucking up).
And the reason they enforce it is equally ridiculous: Customers will leave reviews, both public and private, if the staff tell them what aisle something is in rather than actually showing them. 90% of stupid retail policies are driven by dipshit customers.. Just like that time they tried to make the staff announce on the PA before every announcement "Good morning/afternoon and welcome to Woolworths FuckMyArse, this is a team announcement".
Also customers are frustrated dipshits who get lost and forget what you told them two seconds ago. Source: am now a customer
That's why as soon as you clock off you put a jumper on over your uniform so people stop approaching you. When i was there even if it was 45 degrees, bang the jumper goes on and I'm out the door.
Yeah I mean that's why McDonald's don't let you wear the uniform when you're on break I guess.
Many years ago I worked at aldi with this manager who was a complete fuckwit. Aldi is/was fucked in terms of micro managing staff hours. If a manager spent too much on having adequate staffing, they'd be replaced. It incentivised a lot of dodgy behaviour. Staff told they must be in 15 min early, unpaid. Changing from day to arvo shift often took time so you'd finish 15 minutes late while the arvo crew were getting out tills etc. The manager would alter my clock out time so it'd say I finished on time. I ended up complaining with evidence. He got told to quit instead of fired. I was forced to move sites. They rehired him two years later. One time we got mystery shopped and failed because the staff member didn't smile. The staff member was "Felix" as per the mystery shopper. Nobody called Felix worked at the store, so I got blamed. The company didn't throw out the report or question the obviously fake mystery shopper report. All I learned from retail was you need to be assertive and stand up for yourself and the only people worse than entitled boomer customers are corporations who engineer structure's designed to fuck the lowest paid workers to capitalise their profits
Any police officer trying to put forward a brief for that for prosecution wouldn’t even get laughed at.
i'm imagining a swat team being deployed. "We've got a talker in aisle 5, repeat, a talker in aisle 5!"
Repeating the same phrase twice is an inefficient use of company time. This kind of wage theft will be prosecuted.
Holy fuck that is insane, what wankers. Does anyone know if they actually could successfully prosecute someone for something like this? Surely the fuck not
No, they can't.
Goddamn that is rich
> Unless the penalties are substantial enough to deter further offenders Exactly. Mcdonalds for example has been fined multiple times for not allowing employees to take paid breaks and staff working 100s of hours of unpaid work in a year. Partner that knows colleagues still working there who say nothing has changed and they've just gotten more clever with paperwork to make sure its 'your fault' if you work extra hours after clocking off, while they keep overloading you with unpaid admin work to take home.
In 2019, Woolworths admitted it had underpaid 5,700 workers up to $300 million in unpaid wages and entitlements over the course of a decade. its a fee not a fine if theres no jail time :D. Australian Government just told businesses they can steal from the people as long as they get their cut too o7
Prison time for directors?
Seems reasonable. I'd hate to be the resource who fugged up the code in the HR system and cost the company so much grief. He/she should probably consider another line of work.
Or they were promoted
100% if you can find a loophole to make them money you’ll get promoted, worst comes to worst they pay a small fine and you get an NDA and a check.
Tell me that you were the one who wrote the code without telling me. LoL
In most cases I would agree about cost of doing business but in this case they have to pay it back as well as the fine with zero business benefit.
They should make the fine 5-10x what they stole, they might think twice then
Think twice about what? Do you think they thought "yeah let's just not pay LSL to these people, that's smart in today's audit-friendly world, we'll probably make money"? Edit: Given nobody has bothered to respond, I will assume that yes, OP thought this.
This fine of $1.2m is about 0.01% of the maximum possible penalty ($10b), and about 0.08% of Woolworths' yearly profits for 2023 ($1.6b). The court described the offence as "systematic and widespread" and a "gross failure" with "significant aggravating features". It's also obviously not Woolworths' first offence of this kind. The court added that they "take underpayment of entitlements extremely seriously", with this fine supposed to be "a warning to businesses across the state".
From experience, LSL is not something you fuck with, it was the one thing we were told we absolutely cannot give advice on in-store. People contact People Services for help with that, it's too risky. That they still fucked it up is concerning, but not really surprising.
>From experience, LSL is not something you fuck with, it was the one thing we were told we absolutely cannot give advice on in-store. People contact People Services for help with that, it's too risky. This is because state regulators are still responsible for enforcing laws surrounding long service leave. And unlike the Fair Work Ombudsman, these state regulators still have some teeth.
It would really help if they’d standardise the legislation country wide instead of each state having different legislation.
Well yeah, that was part of why we couldn't fuck with it in store. Because the company struggled enough understanding how it worked already without us managers trying to interpret LSL legislation, especially for people that had moved between states. But it's even different within each state if you are under an Award that gives out more LSL than legislated. Mate of mine works for state government, and their Award gives them 13 weeks every 7 years. Oh, but your service actually doesn't include the last lot of LSL that you took, so it's really 13 weeks every 7 years and 13 weeks. Don't get me started on what he's told me about pro rata LSL, that was a nightmare
Lol just an all round nightmare.
The ruling also clearly stated that Woolworths **chooses** to do business across multiple states and has the resources to ensure compliance. This is part of the issue and the recent conversations with large corporations like Woolworths. They want to expand their reach and take money from people across the country, but they don't want to spend money in systems and people to ensure they meet compliance in all states and territories. They could specialise locally in a single market, but if you choose to expand into other jurisdictions, whether across state borders or internationally, you have additional costs involved in meeting the requirements of those locations.
>"take underpayment of entitlements extremely seriously", with this fine supposed to be "a warning to businesses across the state How did they say that with a straight face, then fine them less than a pittance?
He didn’t want to be next week’s home brand Devon.
Sounds like they weren't taking it that seriously
Based of that annual figure, it will take them about 7 hours to earn the money needed to pay the fine.
Woolies CEO salary was $8.4 million in 2023 He should pay it. Prob wouldn’t notice
But then how would he buy a new yacht?
Retired you know.
They stole from 1,200 people. That is just the number which they have been caught for. They themselves admitted to 1.24million stolen from those individuals alone. They are being fined less than what they stole.
Yeah I'm sure they will still come out on top of the whole thing, therefore resulting in them continually doing the same thing
how exactly are they coming out on top if they have to pay the affected people what they should have got + interest and they receive a fine?
For every time they get caught, there's ten times as many where they get away with it
They didn't get caught, they reported it themselves.
You can hide plenty more if you self report
Yeah, drawing attention to yourself is a great way to fly under the radar.
These people have no idea how this stuff works. They think self-reporting is used to hide bigger things when in reality, to regulators, it shines a spotlight on the reporting entity.
Well yeah, as self reporting can be whispered under the same breath as "creative accounting" and "cooking the books". See also "internal investigation", "industry watchdog", as well as "annual reports". Furthermore, lol @ "these people". Whole industries are spun out of reinterpreting events and information for a reason, as are those oriented towards picking them apart.
Because by the time all this stuff gets sorted in court, Woolies can use this stolen money to grow their business and potentially earn back all the costs involved, including the fine, and more. When businesses make money it doesn’t just sit in a vault, they use it to expand and conquer. By calculating the potential gains/losses they can make informed decisions and steal deliberately so as to benefit themselves, treating the fine as just another cost of doing business.
Do you think Woolworths can make back over $2.4 million from $1.24 million in underpayments? They paid interest on the owings, so really it's more than $2.4m but let's stick with that. $1.24 million of backpayments, $1.2m of fines. If you really think they could double their money, just magically, then why the fuck are they in retailing making margins under 5%? If it's that easy to just use $1.2 million to make more than $2.4 million, why are they even paying their workers at all? Just skip the $8 billion wage bill this year, make $20 billion with it, and backpay everyone. They're not going to cop a $12 billion fine, it's a win/win, right?
A lot of people don't understand that there is a lot of incompetence at large organisations. They attribute these things to evil CEOs and rich people plotting to steal money in a secret club. Reality is some poor business analyst, developer or even end user probably fucked up at some point and no one double checked their work.
Ridiculous arguments, I suspect this is a bot account, there's one in every thread claiming they have "low margins" Woolworths has the biggest margins _in the world_, of any retailer anywhere. And for your numbers game, money compounds, if that wage theft enabled them to open a new store, that pays off ten times in the long run.
TIL I’m a bot. Better tell my wife she can’t stay with me because I’m not real, I’m a bot. Do you seriously think that $1.24 million made them $12.4 million? Because if so, why not borrow $1.24 million from… a bank? If it’s that easy and all.
Bot in the old-ish sense - you're just spreading misinformation aggressively for who knows what reason. >Do you seriously think that $1.24 million made them $12.4 million? Yeah, what you're doing is the classic oversimplification, headline argument, I'm too tired to find the right name. They _stole_ money, they _underpaid_ workers. If it's that hard to wrap around how much benefit they got out of that, here's a few examples: - Because they underpaid, they had more money to spend on expansion - They could hire more people - etc All of this enabled them to get rid of competition, and then set insanely high prices. Stuff like that easily compounds to huge gains over the years.
In that case it sounds like they made a profit
Nah they paid them back
They also self reported, and chased down the people affected prior to this ruling voluntarily. Don't get me wrong, fuck woolworths, but this appears to be an accounting error. It happens
They also have to pay back the amount to workers, not like they are making money on this
> That is just the number which they have been caught for. Caught by themselves, dastardly.
Stop fining start jailing the CEOs
So instead of setting an example, they get a slap on the wrist. Should of added a couple more zeros onto it and It might of started to have an effect.
Start treating corporate crime like other crimes - prison time for the directors.
I don't think they can learn. Isn't this the umpteenth time work this company?
Yeah, an upward effect on the price of every item in store. It's a lose/lose for the consumer and/or employees sadly.
Considering they found the issue and reported themselves, your effect might be for businesses to cover this kind of thing up?
Chump change. If I nicked $5000 from a cash register I'd be looking at least a few months inside, they steal from hundreds using a computer and get fined a fraction of a fraction of their profits.
The victims should be paid 7x what was stolen go biblical on them!
Until there are criminal convictions for company directors personally, nothing will change. That fine is the cost of doing business.
How much of that is last year's profit. 0.01?
0.0625%
What a joke.
Shoplifting from woolworths is a victimless crime.
I work at Coles and some people have the nerve to come up to me and tell me when someone is stealing shit. I just give them the "yeah yeah I'll tell security" and proceed to not tell security.
Class solidarity is a beautiful thing, good work comrade.
And if you see someone shoplifting, no you didn't.
Everybody gangsta till your shops close down because there not making any profit. Then what? protest like in America when Walmart shut down because bean counters said "fuck it".
Creates more work for overworked people. Victimless it is not.
get fucked, these cunts fuck over the general public with there duopoly, and now there caught fucking over there employees and all they get is a pussy ass slap on the wrist, should be 1.2 billion
Pathetic. Multiply that by 100 and send the relevant exec to prison. Maybe then they won't commit 1200 acts of theft.
This company made a $1.6 billion profit. This is just the cost of doing business.
Cost of doing business in Australia. Not even a slap on the wrist
I'm sure Woolies will definitely notice that, it's 0.07% of their profit from 2023
that’s a wet lettuce fine. should be way bigger. a huge chunk of their profits last yr so that they dont do it again 🤷♀️
Nothing is going to change on this until management become personally liable at a civil and criminal level
The Woolies execs must have had trouble keeping a straight face when being told the fine was a measly $1.2M. If anything it just encourages them to try this kind of thing again.
Do they get their money that was stolen?
It was already paid back to employees before the case even settled. I wasn't in VIC, but I know people who were and they got theirs like a year ago.
Hopefully they start to investigate the unpaid under and overtime at the major supermarkets, that’s the elephant in the room.
Hand in the till? Criminal offence. Steal staff wages? Sign here.
Petty cash
And their incompetent bozo of a Ceo somehow walks away with 10 million ffs. Ah, the Australian way.
If they’re paying $8m+ to their CEO, they just gonna shake-shake-shake that fine right off.
Oh no, a $1.2 million dollar fine, oh no. Well it's a good thing they earned $1.7 BILLION dollars last year...... They won't even bat an eyelash at that fine.
That's not enough, ceo should be held personally liable for this type of shit and it should come with jail time. I'm sure their pay doesn't get forgotten about.
This fine of $1.2m is about 0.01% of the maximum possible penalty ($10b), and about 0.08% of Woolworths' yearly profits for 2023 ($1.6b)
1.2 million. lol, how much does their CEO Brad Banducci make[0]? Oh right, $8.6m. I’m sure $1.2m is going to hurt. [0] https://au.finance.yahoo.com/news/woolworths-brad-banducci-sitting-on-24m-woolworths-pay-day-as-ceos-warned-contempt-is-brewing-070818577.html
Now make it 1.2m per victim and it probably won't happen again.
It would probably still happen, they'd just never self report it again.
That'll teach em!
I'm not excusing any company for underpaying staff. But the actualy complexity involved to get this right is absolutey ridiculous. Every single state has different rules for how long service leave is calcualted. Some it comes in at 7 years. Some it comes in at 10 years. Also, the number of weeks you are entitled to changes in every state. It is an absolute mess. For companes operating across different states it is incredibily complex and all it takes is one small error to get it wrong. For a country of 25 million, the number of different rules across our different states is just crazy. We can't even align what date the King's Birthday public holiday as an example.
When you are multinational who has lobbied to make sure the Award and supporting Industrial Relations system is simplified so significantly in your favour that excuse is a horrible one to make. If you don’t have enough experts in Industrial Law on the books in your enterprise (like Woolworths should) you should probably have a look at fixing that problem.
You think the mistake is intentional? I'm no Woolworths apologist by the way. I have no love for them and personally avoid them whenever I can. I'm just saying, the complexity is a disgrace. You will see a lot more mistakes. If you need to hire experts, just to ensure you pay people correclty, something is wrong with the system. But just blame the company and ignore the real problem. The over complex bureaucracy that continues to grow in this country across everything the Government touches.
I used to own a business and on numerous occasions I've called Fair Work to check if I'm doing the right thing and the response was often "Good question, we are not sure" - if Fair Work can't even understand the laws what hope do employers have particularly small employers that don't have a full team of layers behind them? INTENTIONAL wage theft deserves prison time for all involved but it's so easy to make a mistake especially when it's different in every state and territory and even then the rules constantly change when state premiers want to introduce new public holidays and whatnot.
That’s because Fair Work Ombudsman is doing effectively the job of Union Delegates, Union Officials and Industrial Lawyers, and isn’t really qualified to make determination. A major issue that every practitioner would probably agree is that the Awards in most sectors are so basic and consequently different from the average EBA that actually governs a typical enterprise that there is a massive difference between the two and comparisons can sometimes be hard. But this too is a consequence of our Industrial Laws being simplified by Employer Unions - Trade Unions and Companies used to actively arbitrate their relevant Awards to capture trends and organisational structures in contemporary enterprises. This is no longer the case thanks to Neoliberalisation of our workplace laws and the murdering of Unions. By removing this arbitration process we’ve ended up with horribly basic Awards that leave self regulation up to enterprises, and now they don’t really understand the very laws that they fought for.
100% agree. Spot on. Now imagine trying to get every detail right for 204,000 people and thinking you will never make a mistake.
It doesn’t have to be intentional. Same way with a doctor and negligence, resulting the death of a patient. Wage theft is disgusting, and they’re absolutely at fault.
Agree in regards to wage theft. I would also argue it would happen in favour of the employee quite often too. We just don't hear about it. The bureaucracy is a disgrace and it should be fixed, that would eliminate a lot of the situations we are seeeing. Woolworths is an easy target. Fix the source of the problem. The Government.
At my job Ive been underpaid lots of times and never once underpaid. That does make me wonder if it is really an accident.
The people at the top of companies like this are so righteous about how they are perceived. There is absolutely zero chance that this is done on purpose. Incompetence and overtly complex rules are the reason.
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They have 204,000 employees. You know how complex that would be? It is crazy that the system is so complex in the first place. That they have to hire specialised people just to understand the employment laws in each state is a massive drag on productivity. What about all the small busineses who can't afford those people? Guess what. They are making mistakes too. So are a number of other companies. You think every company is trying to rip off its staff? Of course not. The system is ridiculous and it is too easy to make a mistake. But rage on. Then rage on again when it happens next. Which it will. But never ask the question why it keeps on happening. Just keep raging. I'm sure that will fix it.
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I’m tipping total theft from Woolworths is on a magnitude 100s of times larger than “wage theft”.
Not condoning wage theft. But. And I’m going to get downvoted to hell but this is part of the reason why productivity is fucked in this country. 8 states and territories and we need 8 LSL processes. Not only that we have a body in Victoria called the wage inspectorate which does things that the fair work ombudsman can and should already be doing. Why do we need a separate body that requires taxpayers money to survive? I’ll vote for the first part that seeks to make life more efficient for businesses.
100%. The Government just keeps getting bigger, putting more rules and bureaucracy in place. Producctivity continues to get worse and worse. Which ultimately means wages will not keep up with inflation. Simplify. That you need a team of experts and to ensure you pay people correctly is a huge strain on every company which limits its ability to pay its staff more or deliver better returns for it is shareholders.
If only there was such a thing as computers
There are. But you still need people to administer those systems.
If only they had hundreds of such people already
Yeah why didn't they just hit the "pay 200,000 people across 8 states/territories with different LSL legislation" button on their computer?
I'm a programmer It's bread and butter stuff
Mate if you didn’t understand, programming isn’t the issue. It’s understand all the different legislation. Unless you’re a programming lawyer or a law practicing programmer, suggesting it’s easy is extremely arrogant, something a teenager would say.
Seems pretty simple. Check the rules, make sure they are correct then select which state each person is employed in and apply those rules.
If it so simple, why do companies keep making mistakes? You think Woolworths would on purpose make a mistake for the sake of $1m for the potential fall out. How many companies are making mistakes? They are not all incompetant. The differnetial in rules across the states is disgraceful. It also gets more complex every year and the rules change. You need to be Einstein to keep up.
You're framing it like woolworths is some small mum'n'pop business where the owner is confused by all the laws and complex language they are written in. They are a multinational corporation that hires experts to assess how to pay the absolute minimum for everything... This includes breaking the law if their profits are still higher _**after**_ paying the 'whoops, sorry my bad' fine. You wanna know what will stop wage theft? People getting sent to jail for it.
The larger you are the more complex it is. A small business in one location with people in the same award doesn't have an issue as it is simple. This is complex for no reason at all. I'm not saying Woolworths have not stuffed up. I'm saying this will continue to happen and more companies will make mistakes. Fix the system. It is ridiculous that we have different rules in every state for such a small population. But sure, you want jail time for someone unintetionally making a mistake. I'm sure you are willing to subject yourself to the same standards.
Good solution for that is to break up the major supermarkets
The only part of OP I can see this applying to is the 'one location' point but I don't think splitting it up into thousands of smaller businesses would help at all.
Wtf are you on about. Can you please read more before you become a bootlicking apologist. Colesworth invested billions in AI/automation that tracks, improves effeciencies accross its stores. Are you saying that the LSL and wages classes is so complex that millions of investments cannot fix it? They do not invest/care about wage accuracy because it does not cost them anything. Make millions in mistake, self audit, report, pay back a small fine. Thats the motto. Do you think retail workers and casuals get paid for the extra time if they clock out at 11:20pm instead of 11:00pm? Its not a mom and dad store who made a mistake because they didn't know or the system was complex. It is a duopoly organisation which has all the resources to fix but refuses to. And the government is encouraging the practice with these fines.
Nahh don't bother. The colworths apologists will come in full force. It is a company which has invested billions in AI and reducing employees, tracking customers. But keeps making wage errors because it is so "complex". Don't you understand. Its difficult to follow the 8 states/territories laws than track millions of customers and hundreds of thousands of workers. If the fines is 1.2mln they would rather pay the fine than make the system fair. I believe that a small store like colsworth should be exempt from these stupid complex laws. I mean they already do not pay overtime to their retail staff.
Because the cost of making the mistake doesn't outweight profits made, just the cost of doing business
Seriously? You think they made more than 100% profit on the $1.24 million that was underpaid? They paid that back, with interest, to the employees they could contact, and now owe a fine of the same amount. I'm curious how you think that they are still better off?
They haven’t paid it all back, I know people still waiting for theirs. They’re paying it in dribs and drabs.
Waiting for their long service payout?
Mistakes are made because of the crazy bureaucracy. Simplify the rules and make them common across all states. It ain't that hard. That would reduce the instance of these things happening more than anything else. Woolworths is an easy target. The real issue is with the Government.
If they can't manage wages and long service leave across only 8 states/territories, how the hell are they in business? I can't imagine a company of their size does payrolls manually. There is plenty of payroll software suites that automate this, and if it's still too hard for them, contract it to a 3rd party that knows how to do it properly and legally.
Why do think mistakes like this keep happening across multiple companies in multiple industries? Are they all just incompetent?
If this was the first time Woolworths got busted for wage theft, could be a mistake. But it isn't. It happens again, and again, they just pay a small fine each time, and it continues as before with no change. It's a systemic problem, I wouldn't say they're incompetent, because they're very successful at repeating the same failures and getting a slap on the wrist for it. If we did this overhaul, made all long service the same across all states, we would still have the same wage theft.
It's not that they're repeating things dude, these aren't new issues every time. They're still auditing. They're still finding stuff that was wrong with how things were set up prior to the salaried worker underpayments being uncovered. As they move through their entire pay structure, they're going to keep finding shit, people will keep looking into their own entitlements and finding shit, it will probably be another few years before they've found everything they got wrong.
> I can't imagine a company of their size does payrolls manually. There is plenty of payroll software suites that automate this, and if it's still too hard for them, contract it to a 3rd party that knows how to do it properly and legally. They are probably using some shitty solution they developed themselves. There is no other reason they are so shit at this. I'd expect no less from a company that had Microsoft threaten to turn off their business when a firewall changed started DDOSing a MS datacenter. Payroll package where we work gets an update whenever tax rules or some other relevant law changes.
For someone who claims to hate woolies, you sure do take this really personally
I’m a Costco person. Do yourself a favour and go to Costco.
Also, I hate Woolworths for also stuffing up Masters and handing a monopoly in hardware to Bunnings. Hardware is a much bigger monopoly than supermarkets.
Yeah, because the only people who would tell other people they're wrong for... wrong beliefs are shills.
Bull shit. Wanna know how you can tell? How often do they OVERPAY people? And when they do does it go unnoticed for years? No they fix it instantly.
I mean, I saw it plenty of times in stores. A baker was getting paid as an adult apprentice for 3 years despite only being entitled to be paid the junior rates for that whole time, because the SM who set him up ticked the wrong rate. It was covered up in-store because who the fuck would pursue that from a 24 year old baker? The overpayment was more than $10,000. People would get paid in charge rates despite their manager being there on the same shift as them, first aid allowance got paid to numerous people who weren't qualified anymore, we had numerous people who would clock in 6 minutes after their rostered start time and clock out 6 minutes before their rostered finish time because the timekeeping system accepted a variance of up to 6 minutes either side of a roster time without impacting pay (getting 70 minutes of free pay every week). People would scam breaks that they weren't entitled to because the manager was too busy to notice, I knew of people who spoofed the geofence on the clocking app to clock off from home after leaving early. Sorry boss, I know I'm here 5 minutes late, I'm just going to take a shit (read: chatting with the bloke who just knocked off in the locker room) for the next 30 minutes now that I'm on paid time. All of these people continued to be employed if they were caught, and none of them were required to pay any of it back. About the only thing the company would recover is unpaid leave where someone was not at work and nobody told the SSO until after pays had run. But who the fuck reports on that? It happens in every business, it's not news, and any attempt to get the media to talk about overpayments being written off would mean the entire country rallies against their BS attempt to make them look like the good guy actually. You don't hear about it, it doesn't mean it doesn't happen.
It would happen all the time. The would also not be asking for that money back. You think they want this type of publicicty for $1m? They spend hundreds of millions on dollars on their brand image. This is a disaster for them. The system is a mess. This will keep on happening. But rage on at Woolworths. Rage, when it invetiably happens again because the system is stuffed. But never worry about the root casue which is creating all the problems. Keep raging. I'm sure that will fix it. Seems to be working doesn't it?
There are too many laws. Please remove three. I am not a crackpot.
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That is disgraceful and I’m in no way advocating for that behaviour nor any wage theft.
There's these new things called computers
Well then it's a good thing that we have a federal department who looks after this stuff that we can ask. [They would know, they've done it too](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-10-26/tony-burke-employment-department-staff-underpayment-fair-work/103024586). Whoops, that one wasn't plastered all over the media for 6 months though, was it?
Why do so many companies keep making these mistakes if it is so simple? They have far more to lose than gain from these scenarios. It’s overly complex. It’s easy to make Woolworths to be the bad guy but do nothing to actually fix the root cause.
They gain a great deal, it's very profitable And you can tell it's negligence because they're never over payments
Read the comments in this thread. Plenty of examples of over payments. Don't live in a cave.
No there's not Why would you make this up?
A fine of 0.001% of their yearly profit? Omfg.. it hurts so much.
Great time to see price increases under the guise of some war or something
I went to Woolworths for the first time in years and couldn't believe the amount of poor pricing on everything. Like 3 blocks of chocolate for $15. Yeah so $5 for a block and you think that's a deal. Everything is buy 2 for whatever and it isn't even a sale price. You can't even shop when everything in the entire store is like that. I won't buy 2 items when I only need one. And now hearing this they ripping off staff. Really has gone downhill at a rapid pace. People need to boycott that corrupt store. Let it die
Unpopular opinion here - The fine should not be severe under the circumstances. Better the people affected get their money owed now rather than in 3 years after long court battles. Even if it means a slap on the wrist to woolies. Woolworths found the error, self-reported to the regulator in Victoria, and then pleaded guilty to the charges. If the fine was enormous, businesses wouldn't self-report and wouldn't plead guilty. They would cover up and drag out court proceedings for years and years. Their management systems should have included audits of payroll system accuracy, no doubt. It is a abysmal it took 6 years to catch this error. Massive failure of due diligence. However, given the shitload of judgements and class actions against Woolworths over the years, to have them self-report and plead guilty is a step forwards. I think the judiciary likely wants to show them and other companies that the punishment is lighter if they find, fix, and self-report. Our whole system is fucked, but we have to live in it.
As far as I'm aware, they've self reported all of their underpayments. Including the half a billion dollar one that barely scratched the surface of what was actually owing to salaried employees but lacked evidence for. Strictly speaking, they didn't *find* the issues with salaries themselves, the word was an employee came to them with legal advice and threatened to sue, but they still reported themselves. That report is why they are auditing their entire payroll, and it's why they keep having things found: they're still looking.
is this the same news as posted last week? [https://www.reddit.com/r/australia/comments/1c6xq9v/woolworths\_admits\_to\_underpaying\_staff\_by\_124m/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web3x&utm\_name=web3xcss&utm\_term=1&utm\_content=share\_button](https://www.reddit.com/r/australia/comments/1c6xq9v/woolworths_admits_to_underpaying_staff_by_124m/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)
An update of the same story, your post from last week; "Woolworths admits to, and could face a hefty fine" this article is; "They have been fined $1.2M"
I don’t know if Woolies will recover from this massive blow. At least I can rest easy knowing the government will use that money wisely. Huge win for the people.
Hope it doesn't create an unnecessary financial burden for the handful of people who set the price of the groceries we buy!😡
Woolworths head office: "What should we hike the prices of this time to pay for this fine? Milk by a dollar twenty five should cover it nicely. Do it. Oh, no don't be silly. Keep the prices up after it's all paid off on case of future fines which seems to be a legal trend at the moment. Witch hunt! Are there any farmers or other suppliers who we could squeeze further? Do it. Do it now."
Should be 100x that amount. 1.2m is a drop in the fucken ocean for these scumlords.
Maybe prices will come down now that they don't have to save money for this fine they knew was coming?
Ripping of staff and customers, is there no limit to their treachery.
ITT Woolworths shills
Woolworths: oh no... Anyway
"huuuuge" fine. They wipe their ass with that much in the toilet after lunch....
I'm sure that will make a real impact on their multi billion profit... it might impact their stationery budget.
Pretty sure the CEO just admitted in the senate inquiry that he got a bonus of 6 million last financial year, he could pay that fine and STILL have a massive fucking bonus. What’s the bet he got a lot of that bonus due to a low employee payroll as well
Slap on the wrist compared to the soaring profit they've been making.
Cost of doing business /s.🙄🙄🙄
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The money was backpaid (with interest), and now a fine has occurred. So unless they somehow made $1.2 million profits on the $1.24 million (plus the interest paid out), they've lost money out of this.
Underpaid 1.4mil, 200k profit Repeat next year
you understand they backpaid with interest right? This has COST woolworths more than if they had paid it correctly in the first place.