ANOTHER WAGE SCANDAL AND STILL SCOTT MORRISON DOES NOTHING

Every business in Australia has a responsibility to pay its workers properly.
 
Many businesses, large and small, manage to do just that - which is why there's no excuse for major companies like Woolworths and now the Commonwealth Bank to get this so fundamentally wrong.
 
We acknowledge the Commonwealth Bank has moved to rectify this $53 million underpayment by undertaking a thorough review and remediation process.
 
But things like this shouldn't be happening in the first place.
 
This has nothing to do with the complexity of awards - and everything to do with companies' failure to prioritise the correct payment of workers' entitlements.
 
Corporate Australia has been willing to invest millions of dollars to design systems to meet the complexity of taxation laws.
 
They need to take their workers' entitlements every bit as seriously.
 
For half a decade now Labor has been calling on the Liberals to do something about worker underpayment, whether it occurs as a result of genuine payroll error or deliberate, systematic wage theft.

But despite scandal after scandal, starting with 7/11 in 2014, the Government has refused to act.

Scott Morrison simply does not take wage compliance seriously. And by failing to act on this issue, his Government has sent the message to businesses that they don’t need to take it seriously either.
 
That's why Labor last month established an inquiry into wage theft. It will help the Parliament develop ways to stop employers underpaying their staff, and ensure workers get what they are owed.
 
Of course if the Government really cared about wage theft they would ditch their union-bashing so-called Ensuring Integrity legislation – which will weaken the very organisations dedicated to uncovering wage theft.
 
FRIDAY, 13 DECEMBER 2019