Wages claim ‘threat to National Trust solvency’
National Trust Tasmania has been hit with an underpayment of wages claim that it is alleged could drive the organisation into insolvency and force it to sell historic buildings.
National Trust Tasmania has been hit with an underpayment of wages claim that it is alleged could drive the organisation into insolvency and force it to sell historic buildings.
Launceston industrial advocate Damien Durkin has submitted a complaint to the Fair Work Ombudsman, alleging underpayment of wages to a group of employees for some years.
Mr Durkin has written to trust chairman Nicholas Heyward advising him the claim may affect the solvency of the organisation and estimates the cost could exceed $500,000.
“The allegations are that people have been required to work excessive hours for no pay,” Mr Durkin told The Australian. “It has been characterised as ‘volunteer hours’.”
He said at least three employees allege they have been expected to work unreasonable amounts of unpaid “volunteer hours”, including to help with weddings at historic Clarendon House, near Launceston.
Mr Durkin said there was a possibility of a further four workers joining the complaint, while the FWO may decide to conduct a “complete audit”.
“If the FWO did an audit for six years, believing that the ‘volunteer hours’ should have been accounted for, you have the hours of work, penalty (rates) that might apply, plus civil penalties,” Mr Durkin said. “It will start at half a million (dollars) and potentially grow.”
The complaint followed unsuccessful attempts to address the issue of excessive “voluntary hours” with members of the National Trust board, he said.
“They (the employees) work a 38-hour week or part thereof and any extra hours they are supposed to ‘volunteer’ for,” Mr Durkin said.
The trust has been the subject of several controversies, with The Australian in 2019 revealing it had quietly tried to sell more than 50 heritage items.
Trust chairman Nicholas Heyward did not respond to a request for comment.
The trust owns or manages some of the state’s most significant historic properties, including the Georgian mansion Clarendon at Nile, south of Launceston; the convict-built Franklin House in Launceston, and the 1840 whaling captain’s house and gardens, Runnymede, near Hobart.