Union blames poor record-keeping as Qld Health pay bungle continues

A major health union says ‘poor’ record-keeping has created issues for workers caught up in the latest Queensland Health payroll bungle, with as many as 7000 records needing to be audited.

A major union representing health workers has revealed the payroll bungle at Queensland Health involves about 7000 pay records and has flagged a difficulty in workers receiving their repayments due to “poor records kept” at hospital health services.

Last month, The Courier-Mail revealed the government department was auditing staff employed between 2014 to 2021 to work out how many employees were impacted by the historical error to calculate shift penalties.

Thousands of workers across Queensland’s 16 hospital health services were embroiled in the payment failure due to a long-running error in classifying shifts as ‘day’, ‘afternoon’ or ‘shift’.

As a result, some workers did not receive allowances based on their award.

In a note to members on Thursday, the Australian Workers’ Union said Queensland Health was committed to compensate workers for any underpayments.

“For some affected employees, early start and late finish payments will need to be deducted,” the union wrote.

Some workers at Queensland Health were underpaid over a potential eight-year period.

“We have been advised that Queensland Health will not seek to recover any overpayments.

“In 2022 Queensland Health corrected this very same issue for over 2500 employees which resulted in salary adjustments including overpayments being made to workers in August 2022.

“A further audit has uncovered many more employees are impacted by this issue.

“Queensland Health will over the next three months review about 7000 pay records to determine the number of employees impacted, the payments as a consequence and what adjustments need to be made.”

The AWU told its members it was working to ensure underpaid workers received money owed by June 30 but said “the process has been made more difficult because of the poor records kept in the HHS (hospital health services).”

Despite this, a Queensland Health spokesman said “it is anticipated that all staff entitled to back payments will receive them by 30 June 2023” and “any entitlement to back payment will be progressed as a matter of priority”.

“Queensland Health is committed to ensuring staff are paid in accordance with the terms and conditions of their employment,” he said.

“The identification of a historical error in the way some shift penalties had been configured in the payroll system has led to the discovery that some Queensland Health employees may not have been paid some of their overtime entitlements correctly.

“Due to the complex nature of the entitlements, a thorough audit is now being undertaken to ensure the employment contracts for potentially impacted staff have been correctly aligned and recorded in the payroll system.

“Once the audit is complete, appropriate further consultation will occur.”