ARTICLE · 05 NOVEMBER 2020

Focus on Underpayments by the Fair Work Ombudsman

People + Culture Strategies

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The FWO announced that it would be focusing on large corporate underpayments as part of its priorities for 2020-21.

AustraliaEmployment and HR

The National Library of Australia ("NLA") has recently given an enforceable undertaking to the Fair Work Ombudsman ("FWO"), providing another example of the FWO's recent focus on underpayments.

The enforceable undertaking given by the NLA is in relation to the underpayment of casual employees to the tune of $250,000 over the course of 20 years.

Background

The underpayments that the NLA was involved in related to the non-payment of weekend and public holiday shift penalties for casual employees covered by several enterprise agreements and the Australian Public Service Award 1998, which went back more than 20 years.

In total, 106 current and former employees had been underpaid a total of $245,359 in wages and superannuation between 2000 and 2020, with the individual amounts varying between $12 to $19,997.

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