Coles has discovered another $25 million in underpaid wages, bringing the supermarket’s total to $50 million in wage theft between 2014 and 2020 – so far.
This comes a day after Target was hit with a class action alleging underpayments that could total millions, and during the same week that BHP admitted it had underpaid about 28,500 workers hundreds of millions of dollars since 2010.
The timing of Coles’ disclosure is no coincidence; both Coles and Woolworths are the subject of a case brought by the Fair Work Commission in the Federal Court that will begin next week. Woolworths has underpaid staffers close to $600 million, making Coles look positively charitable by comparison.
Coles said this morning in a statement to the ASX that, in early 2020 it conducted a pay review for all workers covered by the General Retail Industry Award after noticing problems.
“Coles actively sought to address the issues based on available information and conducted a remediation exercise.
“Coles expressed its deep regret and apologised to affected team members.
“Coles advises that, following further consideration of the issues as they have evolved, it intends to conduct a further remediation relating to the reconciliation of available records of the days and hours of work of salaried supermarket managers.
“Coles apologises unreservedly to affected team members.”