Sunwater admits $2.3m underpayment of contract workers

Admitting 14 years of underpayments, Qld government-owned water service provider will make a $100,00 ‘contrition payment’.

Sunwater chairwoman Leith Boully. Picture: Supplied

Queensland Government owned water service provider Sunwater has underpaid employees on individual contracts more than $2.3 million over 14 years, the Fair Work Ombudsman has revealed.

FWO Sandra Parker said on Friday that Sunwater would make a “contrition payment” to the federal government of more than $100,000 after self-reporting the underpayments last year.

The affected employees, which are being progressively back paid, are mainly technical specialists and managers employed on contracts.

Sunwater failed to ensure contract employees received all entitlements payable under the enterprise agreements covering its workforce. It assumed wrongly the contract workers were excluded from agreement coverage.

The contract employees were underpaid base salaries, annual leave loading, on-call and relocation allowance, superannuation and accrued time-off-in-lieu. Record-keeping laws were also breached.

30/05/19 Fair Work ombudsman Sandra Parker. Picture: Aaron Francis/The Australian

Sunwater has so far back paid 73 workers more than $2.3 million, including interest and superannuation, who were underpaid between 2006 and 2020. Individual underpayments range from less than $60 to more than $224,000.

The enforceable undertaking requires Sunwater to back pay any outstanding amounts to former employees by October 31.

Sunwater is required to write formal letters of apology to the Australian Service Union and Professionals Australia. The letters carry admissions Sunwater breached federal workplace laws.

Ms Parker said the enforceable undertaking was appropriate given Sunwater had co-operated with the investigation.

“Sunwater has demonstrated a strong commitment to rectifying underpayments, and the Enforceable Undertaking commits the company to stringent measures to protect its workforce,” she said.

“This includes engaging an expert auditing firm to conduct an independent assessment of the outcomes of its rectification program and to audit its compliance over the next two years.”

The size of the contrition payment will be 4.5 per cent of the total underpayment figure.

Sunwater must fund an employee hotline for the next 12 months for employees to make enquiries in relation to their entitlements, underpayments or related employment concerns.

It is also required to display public, workplace and online notices detailing its workplace law breaches.