Recovering underpayments is one element of our work that involves a lot of hard work sifting through time sheets, different parts of our Agreements and how they relate, information from employers and decoding pay slips. There can be long delays in getting the correct information and working out which policies or procedures were implemented by payroll.
However, once we’ve done the hard work usually results in extremely pleasing outcomes; making sure members have received their full entitlements, even if it is years after the event. Unfortunately, it seems that recovering underpayments has become a larger element of our work over recent years.
The Union has been successful over the years in recovering underpayments for members across all our disciplines.
The key element to this success has been you, our members.
Reporting your concerns about underpayment for your wages, overtime payments, Public Holiday Pay, Long Service Leave, Parental Leave or Allowances you’re entitled to, means we can start investigating.
Our investigations always begin with our Industrial Team asking you for information based on your situation and what underpayment concern you’ve reported to us. To make sure we can recover your underpayments, though, we are going to have to use your name because without it, payroll won’t know whose pay needs to be adjusted or who to needs to have additional payments made.
Unfortunately, what we politely refer to as underpayment is, actually, more correctly described as wage theft.
Our team regularly hear a variety of excuses from Health Services for their theft of your entitlements. The most often used excuse is the payroll software is to blame, the other one is the payroll department didn’t know there was a difference.
Despite the excuses, Health Services, whether Public, Community or Private, have no valid reason for underpaying members. Instead of these organisations ensuring they are applying our Enterprise Agreements correctly, they expect you to accept the theft of your entitlements.
We routinely find Health Services have not bothered to review and apply our Enterprise Agreements, and assume the pay, progression structures and entitlements are the same as those in Enterprise Agreements for Nurses. It’s not to single out Nurses, it’s just that this is what we often find is the case.
But there are just no excuses that justify their failure to properly apply our Enterprise Agreements to ensure you’re being properly paid all your entitlements. It’s part of the work we do around compliance with our Enterprise Agreements.
If you think you have not been properly paid for your wages, overtime payments, Public Holiday Pay, Long Service Leave, Parental Leave or Allowances you’re entitled to, make sure you contact us.
It can take some time to work through these issues as they can be complex but please be assured that if you’re owed, we’re happy to pursue your money.
