BHP has conceded it owes up to $430million in back pay after miscalculating public holiday leave for more than a decade in one of Australia’s biggest ever wage theft admissions.
A preliminary review indicated about 28,500 current and former rostered employees across the mining giant’s Australian operations had leave incorrectly deducted on public holidays since 2010.
It is understood BHP’s failure to include 2010 changes to the national employment standards in its internal payroll system are to blame for the blunder.
The average leave lost was six days per employee or about 170,000 days across the company.
‘We are sorry to all current and former employees impacted by these errors,’ BHP Australia president Geraldine Slattery said.
‘This is not good enough and falls short of the standards we expect at BHP.
The mining giant BHP has revealed it owes 28,500 current and former rostered employees $430million in back pay after miscalculating public holiday leave for more than a decade
‘We are working to rectify and remediate these issues, with interest, as quickly as possible.’
In a further blow, initial queries into the payroll of OZ Minerals, which was acquired by BHP in May, indicate a similar, historic public holiday pay error may have also occurred.
About 400 current and former BHP employees at Port Hedland were also not paid additional allowances due to an error with the employment entity in their contract.
BHP said the estimated cost of remediating the leave issue and the contracting issue would be up to $US280million (A$430million) pre-tax, including necessary superannuation and interest payments (BHP share).
In an email to BHP staff on Thursday, Ms Slattery said the issue affected about 19,000 current BHP workers and 9500 former employees.
Global assurance firm Protiviti has been brought in to thoroughly review the payroll systems.
BHP Australia president Geraldine Slattery apologised to the affected workers saying it was ‘not good enough’
An update is expected when BHP announces its full-year results in August.
BHP says it self-reported to the Fair Work Ombudsman and will contact affected current and former employees as soon as possible.
A dedicated hotline and website will be running from Friday.
The huge blunder comes to light as BHP gears up to fight the Albanese Government and unions over the controversial same job, same pay policy.
This would mean labour hire workers are paid at the same rate as direct employees, a change BHP claims could cost it up to $1.3billion a year and ‘fundamentally damage’ Australia’s competitiveness.
Employment and Workplace Relations Minister Tony Burke seized on BHP’s admissions to fire a few shots back.
‘Just last week BHP were trying to assure us that their employment practices were impeccable and the government didn’t need to close any loopholes to protect wages,’ Mr Burke told The Australian.
Current and former rostered BHP employees will be able to use a hotline and a website from Friday to recover money owed to them
‘That’s clearly not true. Australia can do better to make sure workers are properly paid. That’ll be the focus of our legislation in the coming months.’
The Fair Work Ombudsman said on Thursday that the regulator would conduct an investigation into the underpayments.
‘As regulator we will hold the organisation to account for any breaches of workplace laws,’ a spokesperson said.
‘Any workers with concerns about their pay should contact us for assistance.’
Source: | This article originally belongs to Dailymail.co.uk