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Coles Admits Underpaying Staff By $20 Million Over Six Years

Coles Admits Underpaying Staff By $20 Million Over Six Years

The majority of those affected are store managers

Stewart Perrie

Stewart Perrie

Coles has admitted to underpaying staff by $20 million over six years.

The Australian supermarket giant has confirmed it has set aside the same amount of money to help repay affected employees.

In a report, Coles revealed that one percent, roughly 1,150, of its team members had been underpaid due to differences between their remuneration and the General Retail Industry Award. The majority of those affected are store managers.

Chief executive Steven Cain said: "We are working at pace with a team of external experts to finalise our review. Once completed we will contact all affected team members, both current and former, to remediate any identified differences in full.

Darren.notley (Creative Commons)

"Coles has implemented steps to improve our systems and processes."

According to the Sydney Morning Herald, the full scale of the underpayment might be higher than $20 million. The company reported a $725 million surplus in earnings last year thanks to a strong Christmas period.

It's a baffling revelation considering its major rival, Woolworths, was similarly reported to have been underpaying staff last year. Admittedly, this case was far worse.

Woolworths undertook a review of its worker's salaries just before it introduced the newest enterprise bargaining agreement.

Woolworths/YouTube

It was during this review that the company noticed that there was a difference between what staffers were being paid as per their salary versus what they were entitled to be paid under the General Retail Industry Award.

As many as 5,700 staff had missed out on hundreds of millions of dollars.

"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 in a statement.

"Affected current and former salaried team members will receive their full entitlements, including back payments with interest and superannuation contributions, as soon as possible.

"Interim back payments will be made before Christmas to affected Supermarkets and Metro salaried store team members for the two years reviewed to date (September 2017 - August 2019)."

The payments go as far back as 2010 and the amount is between $200 million to $300 million.

Featured Image Credit: Wpcpey (Creative Commons)

Topics: News, Australia