The Australian largest supermarket giant has admitted to letting their workers down by underpaying them by $300 million in total.
The CEO of Woolworths Australia has spoken out as the company was found to have been underpaying their workers for years.
According to the reports, 5,700 of the retail company’s employees were swindled out of up to $5,200 per year for a period of one decade.
“As a business we pride ourselves on putting our team first, and in this case we have let them down,” CEO Brad Banducci said in an interview with the Australian Securities Exchange.
“The highest priority for Woolworths Group right now is to address this issue, and to ensure that it doesn’t happen again.”
Ironically, the failure to comply with the law and regulations has begun around the year 2010, the same time the company received the General Retail Industry Award.
While the CEO suggested the company’s priority is to ensure that the same thing doesn’t happen again, Australia’s largest union of retail workers, The Shop Distributive and Allied Employees Association, vowed they would make sure the employees are compensated and that the retail giant meets its legal obligations.
“Wage compliance is every employers responsibility and every employer must fulfill their legal obligations,” they announced in a statement.
“The SDA will continue to engage with Woolworths to seek further detail in relation to individual matters and to ensure those employees are properly represented.”
As secretary Josh Cullinan of the Retail and Fast Food Workers Union added, the underpayments represent a “wage theft” that the company has to be held responsible for to the maximum extent.
“Woolworths, had they been able to get away with this, would have saved hundreds of millions of dollars,” Mr. Cullinan suggested.
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Replaced!