Law firm tied to Labor, Slater + Gordon, underpaid workers

Slater + Gordon underpaid more than 100 employees over a 12-year period, following a human ‘error’ that has mainly affected new mothers.

Slater + Gordon has underpaid some of its employees over a period of 12 years.

Labor-affiliated law firm Slater + Gordon underpaid more than 100 employees over a 12-year period, following a human “error” that has mainly affected new mothers.

The firm, which predominantly handles class actions brought by disenfranchised workers and was founded by former Labor politician and trade unionist William Slater, has appointed advisory firm KordaMentha to investigate the full extent of the incident.

In-house payroll discovered the mistake more than a year ago, but executives began informing affected staff only on Thursday morning after it was discovered more than $300,000 in underpayments had been made.

The mistake, which was made by an employee in 2011, saw employees who took leave at half-pay between 2011 and last year have leave accrual calculated on a pro rata basis, rather than a full-time basis.

Chief executive Dina Tutungi told The Australian the underpayments came down to a “miscalculation of a leave provision”.

“We undertook a full reconciliation of our system ... and we think there is at least 100 people impacted who took leave at half-pay,” she said. “It will be a combination of re-crediting existing staff members leave and reimbursing former employees’ leave.

“That’s where the $300,000 figure comes from.”

Slater + Gordon has self-­reported the underpayments to the Fair Work Ombudsman, and has advised the Australian Ser­vices Union of the issue.

Ms Tutungi said the ASU has been offered “full transparency to ensure the union is able to satisfy itself that the reconciliation and remediation work is comprehensive and accurate”.

Slater + Gordon was founded in 1935 by Slater – a former ­attorney-general of Victoria under the Prendergast government – and his brother-in-law and solicitor Hugh Gordon.

The firm, initially founded to service unions, is a large ALP donor, having reportedly in 2022 donated $36,000 in Queensland and $5500 to federal Labor. Past employees include former prime minister Julia Gillard, and Greens leader Adam Bandt.

Then-prime minister Julia Gillard speaking to the media in 2012 regarding her time at Slater + Gordon.

Ms Tutungi promised the firm would “repay the full entitlements of all those who were underpaid, with interest” and will “credit the leave balances of our current employees who have been affected”.

“We are a firm that defends and protects workers’ rights,” Ms Tutungi said.

“That’s not going to change and it was really critical we came out and were transparent.”

Ms Tutungi, who took on the role of CEO just three months ago, said the incident “should not have happened”.

“Our people are absolutely motivated in making sure they achieve success and justice for clients, that they hold big corporations to account,” she said.

“Likewise, we’re going to have to hold ourselves to account on this. We apologise for what’s happened. It just should not have happened, and we will hold ourselves to account. We’re not above this, nor is anybody else.”

The underpayments are understood to predominantly affect new mothers and fathers who had gone on parental leave and elected to take some or all of it on half-pay.

Ms Tutungi said the mistake was discovered by a payroll employee in May last year, who immediately corrected the system configuration and informed their bosses.

Following that, the firm conducted a “complex and manual reconciliation of current and historical employee payroll and leave records, which was necessary to understand the nature and extent of the issue”.

The reconciliation was completed in May this year, and is now being reviewed by KordaMentha.

Asked why it took more than a year between the mistake being discovered and staff being alerted, Ms Tutungi said “the reconciliation was quite a manual and complex process … It involved reviewing thousands of records ... the thing to note is that the issue was fixed straight away,” she said.