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The health business self-reported to the FWO after discovering underpayments to around 2,700 staff.
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St Vincent’s back pays staff $4.4m after ‘payroll errors’
20 December 2023
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Hospital and aged care businesses run by St Vincent’s Health Australia are back-paying staff more than $4.4 million after admitting that payroll errors led to huge underpayments.
St Vincent’s Health Australia, the largest not-for-profit health operation in Australia, self-reported to the Fair Work Ombudsman in July 2021 that its four businesses had underpaid hospital employees in NSW and aged care workers in Queensland from 2014-20.
It identified the underpayments after installing new enterprise agreements and conducting an internal review.
The four businesses involved – St Vincent’s Private Hospitals, St Vincent’s Hospital Sydney Limited, St Vincent’s Care Services and St Vincent’s Private Hospital Sydney – admitted poor payroll, human resources and governance practices had led to the errors.
St Vincent’s had now signed an enforceable undertaking with the FWO to repay the staff.
The FWO said St Vincent’s owed around 2,700 current and former employees more than $4.4 million, including $4.02 million in wages and entitlements plus $266,731 in superannuation and $135,666 in interest.
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Individual back payments ranged from less than $1 to more than $87,300, with the average back payment just over $1,637.
One of the businesses, St Vincent's Care Services, had also credited annual leave entitlements worth about $650,000 to impacted current employees.
The FWO said more than $3.7 million of the underpayments occurred in NSW, with the majority affecting nursing and support staff at St Vincent’s private and public hospitals at Darlinghurst in Sydney, its private hospital in Griffith and the Mater Hospital in North Sydney.
Employees were mainly underpaid annual leave loading entitlements and weekly allowances based on length of service, with some casual nurses short-changed on overtime entitlements.
Aged care workers in Queensland were underpaid a total of almost $400,000 in annual leave entitlements.
Most employees had already been paid, the FWO said, and under the agreement, all staff had to receive their entitlements by the end of June 2024.
Fair Work Ombudsman Anna Booth said the businesses had co-operated with the investigation.
“Under the enforceable undertaking, the businesses have committed to implementing stringent measures to ensure all of their workers are paid correctly,” she said.
“These measures include commissioning, at their own cost, an independent audit to check that they are fully complying with all aspects of workplace laws.”
Ms Booth said all employers should prioritise meeting worker entitlements.
“In this matter, lack of investment in human resources and poor governance led to long-term breaches and significant staff underpayments and rectification costs,” she said.
“We expect all employers – including those in the care sector, an FWO priority in 2023-24 – to have governance systems in place to ensure they meet all entitlements.”
The undertaking requires the businesses to engage an independent specialist to conduct an audit, operate a telephone hotline for employees to make enquiries until March 2024, and publish notices about the contraventions on their websites.
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