Not-for-profit underpayment spreads, with Baptist Care SA owing years of backpay to staff

Another not-for-profit group has underpaid its staff – the second church-based organisation to admit it owes backpay to employees this month.

The underpayment scandal in the not-for-profit support sector has spread to Baptist Care SA with confirmation they owe years of backpay to current and former employees.

As revealed in The Advertiser, Uniting Communities owes around $2m to about 400 current and 550 former staff.

It has self-reported to the Fair Work Ombudsman after a review sparked by complaints by senior management over their paypackets revealed the debacle.

The support and advocacy group blamed complexity in enterprise agreements for the underpayments and stressed it values their staff.

Baptist Care SA faces similar problems but says it does not yet know how many employees and past employees are affected or amounts owed.

Baptist Care SA also has self-reported to the Fair Work Ombudsman in the light of discovering the wages underpayment.

Baptist Care SA's Salisbury site.

Baptist Care SA chief executive Shane Austin said a review had identified “potential inconsistencies” in employee remuneration, which may have resulted in some employees, current and former, being underpaid.

“Baptist Care SA has self-reported to the Fair Work Ombudsman and informed potentially

impacted current and former employees,” Mr Austin said.

“An investigation commissioned by Baptist Care SA, which is continuing, has found there have been some inconsistencies and errors in the pay rules in the pay system, which may have resulted in some employees not receiving their correct entitlements.

“All current and former employees of Baptist Care SA from July 1, 2016, onwards will have

their remuneration reviewed as part of the investigation to identify whether they’ve been

paid correctly or not.

“Baptist Care SA is committed to rectifying this issue and fully reimbursing all impacted

qualifying individuals, who may not have received their full wage entitlements. This will include wages owed, superannuation and further interest payments.

“This will all be reviewed by the Fair Work Ombudsman.”

Abbie Spencer, secretary of the Australian Services Union SA and NT, said the scandal was growing.

“We are seeing an increasing number of underpayments in the social, community and disability sectors and these employers who are self-reporting are just the tip of the iceberg,” she said.

“For Uniting Communities to blame the ‘complexity of the enterprise agreement’ is absurd as they negotiated these enterprise agreements.

“These organisations should have the payroll systems to implement these agreements. It is employers who decide to put enterprise agreements to ballots and effectively control when and where these enterprise agreements take place so to blame a ‘complex’ agreement is farcical.

“At Uniting Communities, the enterprise agreements simply states that managers will be paid at least 11 per cent above the award – this is not exactly complex.