Time and time again wage theft pops up and it’s treated like a civil matter. And sure enough execs say sorry, cop a slap on the wrist and move on.
This would have to be one of the biggest corporate thefts in Australian history. Imagine what would happen if woollies failed to pay the tax office $300 million
Is it time wage thieves are jailed?
I remember technically being overpaid for months when there were issues with the union settling on a new agreement, but Woolies knew a wage rise was inevitable and didn't want to backpay when it was finalised.
Mistakes have happened and staff get overpaid.
But that won't make headlines news like, 'Woolworths STEALS $300million from workers'.
You really genuinely think there’s been a situation where there’s been an overpayment (above the contract/ea/award) even close to this scale?
The CEO has been overpaid for years now
No doubt, he'll "deal with the situation" and get rewarded with a pay rise.
In this case, literally every person being paid over award rates is being "overpaid".
Why?
It would only be overpayment if they were being paid more than the contract/agreement/award. I think you’re intentionally being mischievous, again.
@HighAndDry: That is completely irrelevant. People paid above the award are paid that way because of their contract. You cannot claim that as ‘overpayment’. The award is the minimum conditions, not the maximum.
Deadset your arguments are becoming more ludicrous by the minute.
The Fresh Fraud People.
I like that one. If you read today’s Age it is even worse than they have said. Woollies only goes into damage control when they can’t keep the lid on it anymore. It all got blown by an employee who refused to buckle under the pressure. I’m amazed they didn’t fire him then say he wasn’t performing well enough, that seems to be the standard business practice nowadays. They hide behind “it’s all too complicated” BS. People should be paid for the hours they do according to the award they are under. As others have said, they don’t seem to miscalculate so they overpay, do they?
People should be paid for the hours they do according to the award they are under.
This involves salaried staff - they don't get paid by the hour, in some cases don't even have their hours logged.
Hmm, not the impression I got from The Age article. The guy they were talking about should’ve been entitled to overtime and he was covered by an award. Unless someone is high up in an organisation, which this guy wasn’t, there is usually something in their contract on hours and pay. I can’t see how their hours aren’t logged. Most organisations have some sort of timesheeting process, if Woollies doesn’t then they would seem to have a pretty large hole in the time management of their employees.
@try2bhelpful: Yes he was entitled to it, but the whole scandal is based on Woolworths not including it in their salary agreements:
On June 6, he received a letter from employment specialist Ashurst, refusing to pay his client’s overtime claim because his client’s annualised salary meant he was “not separately entitled to overtime”.
Salary = fixed pay, not based on hours worked.
If the guy had managed to get his job done much quicker and spent less time at work he would effectively have a much higher per-hour pay rate than the award, but that's not a realistic possibility considering his job is basically supervising other staff working fixed shifts.
@ssquid: The metrics they use are unachievable as well, they don't factor in employees on work cover or the possibility of other things going wrong (being busy and having to be on the registers serving, truck break downs, new initiatives from the outside the stores). They also keep restructuring and making it harder for the long-term salaried managers to force them into burning out or quitting. I was speaking to one of my old managers from when I worked at Woolworths and he says he now has to look after the grocery, fridges, freezers and fresh departments. He said he has to do 12 hours every day just to get everything done. As soon as he leaves his position will be filled with a waged manager and a helper and the total cost to the company will be less.
@whooah1979: It's a reasonable number of hours in a three day working week, but not many are doing that.
Very much depends on the award/EA. I’m on salary but get paid shift loading and overtime
@Vote for Pedro: Are the SDA involved with salary agreements? It seems very fishy that this was happening under their noses.
@ssquid: SDA have been in bed with Colesworth for years. That's why a new retail union had to start up.
Even if they are on a salary the Fair Work Regulations require a company to keep records of overtime hours.
@Hardlyworkin: While the SDA are what they are, it actually has nothing to do with the employer underpaying workers. The blame needs to sit with the perpetrator. But nice deflection attempt
@Hardlyworkin: Whataboutism at it’s finest. Let’s talk about the SDA instead of Woolies stealing from workers
@Vote for Pedro: With any large scandal there is usually more than one error that lead to it. Woolies culture and those who created it are the main culprits though I wonder if a stronger union would have allowed them to be so non compliant. I think that is more plausible than 'the difficult awards system'.
The relationship the SDA has with Woolies is beneficial to both though failing the employees.
@Hardlyworkin: I agree that unions are hamstrung by the current industrial system to be able to be as strong as they should be. Perhaps the law should change to shift compliance from fair work to unions. That seems to be what you’re suggesting. Or was it just a cheap shot attempt at blaming a third party?
And that is the big problem with woolies, they push contracts onto as many as they can for that reason. It's disgusting.
To be fair, almost every salaried employee is expected to work above their hours. This is an issue with most retail chains due to retail's low salaries.
I really can't wait to see all the restaurant closures when this hits hospitality.
It's amazing that workers always appear to be underpaid.
I'm not aware of any cases when we have been overpaid, or perhaps I'm just unlucky?
I'm sure if we were overpaid management would demand the money back straight away but when it's underpaying they seem to take months to do anything about it.
It would only be overpayment if they were being paid more than the agreement/award. I think you’re intentionally being mischievous.
I tend to agree, in principal.
What happened here was "X number of employees contracted salaries lower than award". Being underpaid is if you are contracted to earn $1,000pw and they give you $900. Semantics, sure, but nothing sells ad space like "Company STEALS from employees", or "Staff Underpaid".
I still think what they did was wrong, but i also doubt it was intentional - why would Woolies intentionally risk such a massive publicity issue?
I work at coles and have been paid for a couple of shifts i haven't worked.
Have just let it balance out if i'm 15 mins under one week etc. - think i'm still up overall
And that’s unethical as well.
been overpaid several times in my career (coincidentally that included nearly all of last financial year as they forgot to remove a allowance I was getting when I changed roles, they fixed it now and I just get to consider that an extra bonus). It happens and I bet it happens regularly, though you will never hear anyone complain they were paid to much and I doubt press would be interested in a story of someone being accidentally paid extra.
If it can be proven beyond any reasonable doubt that a corporate intentionally withholds pay, then jail time of some sort would certainly, at least in my opinion, reduce the incentive to do it. Otherwise, in a lot of instances where companies are punished with fines, then businesses just see it as a necessary cost of doing business, and then it becomes ineffectual.
The alternative would be scaling fines, and penalties. If you take an approach where a company is fined a large percentage of it’s value, or yearly profit, companies will be, I think, weary of doing the dodgy.
Woolworths pay scandal: how the retail giant played hardball
Interesting read, especially the attempted cover up.
Interesting read, it defies belief that they have got this so wrong. There is nothing complex about the calculations. A few mins with a calculator and you should know where a salary is cutting it fine or not and how many extra hours will out in in the wrong.
Interesting read, another reason to shop at Coles first.
you think coles are any better? ha ha. under their dodgy agreement with the sda thousands of staff who worked nights and weekends got less than award rates. and coles were too stingy to backpay them.
Great, so bring back debtors prisons? Because apparently owing people money and not paying them should be a jailable offence.
Ms Dhu died in costody over unpaid fines in 2014
"Ms Dhu had been detained at the South Hedland Police Station lock up for three days for unpaid fines totalling $3,622, but "suffered a catastrophic deterioration in her health" while in police custody, the coroner found."
WA to change fine default laws five years after Ms Dhu's death
Fines, not private debts. Try again?
Why make the distinction? A debtor is a debtor. Are you happy to jail people for unpaid fines but not unpaid wages?
@kahn: Because one voluntarily enters a circumstance where a transaction occurs, ie. payment for labour, and the other isn't voluntary. The sum that is owed involuntarily in this instance is the result of a breach of law.
Debt is voluntary. Ie. Repayment for loan.
@[Deactivated]: A-ha! It's the ozbargain forum's reigning tag-team champions of debating - HighAndDry and tshow. In the present bout, we have HighAndDry constructing a strawman argument and tshow being tapped in to beat the strawman into submission. :-)
Debt is voluntary.
Unpaid fines are a debt owed to the issuer of the fine. Perhaps you want to label them as something else. How about liabilities? Seriously, I still don't see why a distinction is being made between a debt owed to an individual and one owed to an issuer of a fine. Maybe it's just part of the strawman strategy. shrugs. While I admit to not having much knowledge of ye olde debtors prisons, I'd guess that if money was owed and could not be fully paid (via various attempts) then who owns the debt is more or less irrelevant.
I still don't see why a distinction is being made between a debt owed to an individual and one owed to an issuer of a fine.
Both are debts. One is resulting from a mutually voluntary agreement.
The other is resultant of the fine. The detention isn't the direct result of the failure to pay said debt. It is the result for failure to pay said fine. A fine, as you may be aware, is a penalty for some form of breach. Further penalty, in this case detention, is further action resulting from the fine and not the debt.
It is akin to someone in court being given the option of paying damages or facing jail. If one isn't capable of remedying damages, they go to jail. It isn't because they've agreed to a loan and then they are jailed for said debt.
You make a lot of ad hominem remarks and ask an apparently rhetorical question that was already addressed.
PS. You've single handedly made a straw man out of straw man and then addressed the straw man to beat it. H&D raised a legitimate comparison regarding jailing other failures to provide compensation for services rendered. Just because you are unable to address the comparison doesn't make the point presented irrelevant. It either makes you a weak/unprepared debater or a hypocrite.
@[Deactivated]: Okay, I take your point regarding the elevated status of fines versus debt. However, the below comment is clearly a strawman argument.
apparently owing people money and not paying them should be a jailable offence
It's the "and not paying them" bit that is the problem. Woolworths have (eventually) admitted wrongdoing, apologised and will make arrangements to settle the outstanding amounts. At this point in time, they are not refusing to pay back employees, and even if they were refusing after a court order, Woolworth's assets could easily be partially ceased by authorities. The concept of a debtor's prison only applies in the absence of possibility of payment, hence irrelevant.
The punishment of imprisonment that the OP mentioned is referring to breaching the law relating to employment entitlements including wage theft. This punishment would be punitive.
@HighAndDry: That's interesting. Why do you think that a common law / regulation should be upheld more than wages?
Especially when it's in the form of labor. If the Government serves to protect the people, and laws/regulations are to used regulate/protect people, why can't corporations be subjected to the same thing?
After all, when we agree to enter a employer/employee contract, who's there to protect either party when an agreement is breached? Shouldn't this be also in the purview of the police? aka the right hand of the government.
I would argue that work generates income, and income pays taxes, and taxes fund governments, therefore governmental bodies do have some sort of responsibility that even the lowest denominator here is protected from wage theft, and thus should be treated the same as regular theft.
That's interesting. Why do you think that a common law / regulation should be upheld more than wages?
Because one is supposed to be to prevent some public harm or promote some public good, while the other is a private contract.
@HighAndDry: If it's a private contract, why do we pay taxes?
edit: It might seem like a dumb question, but think about it. If it is truly private, what good reason does the government have to be entitled a slice of the pie?
@Ghosteye: it is a stupid question as the 2 aren't linked or related as you are not taxed on how you do business but rather what you earned irrespective of how. You pay taxes as an obligation to the society you live in. How you earn the money isn't particularly relevant whether through private contracts, businesses, assets etc etc (except where it affects the rate of tax).
@gromit: In return for contributing to society, society offers safety in return in terms of laws and regulations. Otherwise why would anyone contribute at all?
edit: and now by allowing wage theft, society is not protecting me (the person being stolen from), so why should society be entitled to any pie at all if it cannot protect the income that I earned?
edit: And I get it, it's a very general scoped question, but I'd like to believe that these are very intimately intertwined.
@Ghosteye: Where did society allow it? in fact they explicitly forbid it and demand woollies repay it and also may face potential penalties on top, how exactly is that society allowing it? Feel free to go to the ATO and try to demand you don't have to pay tax as the government isn't protecting you enough, let us know how they goes for you.
@gromit: By treating it as a civil case (not as serious) vs treating it as a criminal case (against specific people in the organisation who sanctioned these actions)?
God, why do you think they even do it if 'society explicitly forbids it'? The argument here is that it's not being treated seriously enough and all you can manage here is make a joke out of the victims?
@HighAndDry: Minimum wages are regulated (to prevent harm - exploitation). Anyone paying less has failed to adhere to the law. The question is the punishment.
I think that’s the question that needs answering. Is it theft or not. If it’s theft it should be dealt with as a criminal matter rather than civil.
How are thefts where employees steal from employers treated?
But if this is a theft, is someone failing to pay their phone bill theft too? And a crime?
What defines theft is a law. The question I ask is given the prevalence of companies (in a power position over worker’s) stealing from workers should be treated as a crime.
I personally think the law should change so that theft in any employer employee relationship should be treated the same. That is employee stealing from employer or employer stealing from employee
@Vote for Pedro: On the same merits, failure to pay a phone bill would also be theft as defined by law. To agree to a service and refuse reimbursement applies to both failure to pay wages and failure to pay bills. Wages are essentially a bill for the service of labour.
Law is the defining line between crime or otherwise. Saying that which defines theft is law amounts to an infinite loop of definition.
@Vote for Pedro: You said that what is theft is defined by the law. By this measure, underpaying workers is not theft, because there's no law saying it is.
Your entire thread is pointless.
Fraud might be a better word.
If you intentionally manipulate a financial arrangement to unlawfully take funds payable to another person for your own benefit and then conceal that fact from them, that is pretty much textbook fraud.
Turn it around. If an employee at Woolies is handed money at the checkout, technically at that point the money is in their possession. Can they just pocket it despite it being due to Woolies, and then tell Woolies it's a civil matter?
Correspondingly, Woolies is holding money ultimately from customer sales which is due to a worker and just pockets it instead of actually paying it.
Not really all that different, except Woolies has much more power than a single worker.
@caitsith01: But please think of the people that don't pay their phone bills! This, apparently, could affect them as well.
@caitsith01: There's no concealment. The workers know how much they're being paid and how many hours they're working. All the relevant Awards are publically available.
@HighAndDry: And they’ve been busted and exposed breaking the law despite their attempts to conceal and limit the issue.
@Vote for Pedro: Comment I was replying to was claiming fraud due to concealment from the worker, not whatever you're talking about here.
@Vote for Pedro: Fraud is a crime with a set legal definition. The person was using it in the way.
Stop trying to conflate the word's literal and figurative meanings again like you did with "theft".
@HighAndDry: Let’s be realistic. They put contracts to workers that were deceptive. This deception led workers to be underpaid. I know some reputable large organisations that (genuinely) audit their payroll systems against agreements and awards. If they were holier than thou as you’d like us to believe they would’ve picked it up sooner. Instead they tried to harrass the worker that lifted the lid with their highly paid lawyers. Sure, go for it, defend their behaviour.
@Vote for Pedro: How were the contracts deceptive?
The issue for you is that I'm not even defending what they did. It's that your bunch of detractors can't seem to put together a logically coherent argument to save your lives.
And you wonder why employee movements have no success? Yeah, look in the mirror.
Reported cases of when an employee steals from an employer often involves fraud and is often perpetrated by a small number of bad actors. Wage theft is often systemic and untargeted. Criminal matters requires a greater burden of proof than civil cases and a single person is easier to prosecute than a corporation.
But when wage theft is the business model (restaurants and 7/11 recently) or when there are attempts to conceal the theft?
It's a case-by-case thing. Woolworths self-reported this apparently. So it's probably not theft, it's a mistake. Yes it's a HUGE mistake, but it's only a crime (theft) if it was an intentional act by one or more people. Apparently they will repay everything plus interest, including underpaid super, etc.
As a former employee of Defence payroll, I can tell you mistakes happen - both underpayments and overpayments. The more complex the payroll system, the more mistakes are made. The underpayments, usually short term, were easy to fix. The overpayments were nightmares!…
If you are being sarcastic then ignore the following post.
Seriously, this wasn’t just missing a couple of bucks. This was a systematic underpayment that could constitute $300 million dollars. The guy in The Age was being underpaid $8,000 a year. If you walked up to someone with a gun and stole $8,000 you end up in jail. If you, knowingly, underpay him the same amount you get to, firstly say “not true” then you get to say “we’ll have your damn money but we don’t accept we got it wrong” followed by “oops, apparently we don’t know how to bookkeep properly, but it’s just so complicated to run a billion dollar company properly”. Debtors prison, be damned, this is highway robbery and it will only stop when people are made to pay for what they’ve done. Why shouldn’t stealing money off people land you on goal. So your view is if the mugger hands the money back, after he is caught, then no harm no foul?
Again, so debtors prisons for people who fail to pay thousands in bills?
What defines theft is a law. The question I ask is given the prevalence of companies (in a power position over worker’s) stealing from workers should be treated as a crime.
I personally think the law should change so that theft in any employer employee relationship should be treated the same. That is employee stealing from employer or employer stealing from employee
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debtors%27_prison
Debtors prisons were, often, for people who couldn’t pay a debt. A very emotive term you’ve decided to use there. Apparently some people like to use the term when they don’t want to pay their fines.
If you decide to commit a crime you don’t get to say “my bad” and walk away from it. The incarceration would not be from being unable to repay the debt but the fraud committed by the underpayment in the first place. Claiming ignorance is not an excuse when your job is to know. An accountant that was siphoning off money that should come to their clients can be tried and incarcerated. I think a judge would find it hard to accept a “not guilty because l’m incompetent” plea. The accountant owes a duty of care to his clients. In the same way the companies involved here owe a duty of care to make sure they are paying their employees correctly. When the amounts are huge, across multiple companies, it certainly, looks more systematic than “oops”. Not a debtors prison, just a normal one for criminals is fine.
@try2bhelpful: Ok so only people who're able to pay their bills but don't end up in debtors prison?
Or does your argument for criminal consequences only target those you don't like?
If you walked up to someone with a gun and stole $8,000 you end up in jail.
Fatal flaw in your analogy.
The person with a gun would first be jailed for armed robbery.
Your analogy is equivalent to, "Man jailed for having a muffin". Article then explains he was sexually penetrating a muffin in public. It had little to do with a muffin.
Hahaha! What part of wage theft don't you understand?
Wage theft - "Wage theft is the illegal practice of withholding wages from an employee."
Steal - "take (another person's property) without permission or legal right and without intending to return it."
Is it stealing if you never had it in the first place? You guys are dumb lol.
I am soooo dumb, I didn't realise wage theft includes the intention of eventually paying all the money owed :-(
Semantics. If someone redirected payments that were coming into a company, but hadn’t made it to their bank account yet, would you call that theft? After all, it wasn’t in the companies possession at that point. I’m willing to bet theft would be one of the charges.
@try2bhelpful: No, that would be embezzlement. Which is similar bit quite distinct from theft itself.
embezzlement
theft or misappropriation of funds placed in one's trust or belonging to one's employer.
H&D, if you're going to be pedantic, you should try to be right as well.
Hahaha! What part of wage theft don't you understand?
So… if we called it payroll rape, does something/someone actually get diddled?
LOL, there you go again. You're obfuscating this issue by taking a legal term and introducing the possibility of it being used figuratively. You're driving me crazy.
To dig into my memory of the legal definition of theft, it is basically the misappropriation of property. The issue discussed relates to funds that would have been in possession of many Woolworths' salaried workers if the Woolworths official officers offered legal salary contracts. Instead, the money stayed in Woolworths' coffers.
Cause: creation of contracts that attempted to avoid an employer's legal responsibilities, making them non-legally binding as far as I'm aware
Effect: misappropriation of funds
Effect: misappropriation of funds
You mean unlawful withholding of funds.
I'm not disputing it is unlawful but you're making a distinction of criminal and theft. It carries the moniker "Wage theft" but it doesn't mean it is theft.
You know why wage theft isn't literal theft? It is literally in the name. If it was actual theft, they'd just call it theft and tried the employers for theft.
being used figuratively
You agree that wage theft is a figurative term, but insist on it meaning literally the same as actual theft. Explain that.
Funny how they never overpay thier staff.