Two key businesses of the Commonwealth Bank – Australia’s largest financial institution – have been charged with 23 criminal offences for allegedly failing to pay long service leave to staff.
The charges, which were filed in recent days in the Magistrates Court and could result in hefty financial penalties and convictions, come after an investigation by Wage Inspectorate Victoria, the state’s industrial relations regulator.
Commonwealth Bank entities have been hit with 23 criminal chargesCredit:Bloomberg
The inspectorate alleges that Commonwealth Bank’s online broker CommSec and its BankWest business failed to pay more than $70,000 in long service leave to 20 former employees once they left their jobs.
There are also criminal charges for failing to comply with a request to produce documents to the regulator.
It is the latest in a number of legal cases brought against the Commonwealth Bank – which last week reported a $9.6 billion full-year profit – for failing to pay workers correctly.
In another similar case involving Coles, the inspectorate originally laid charges over unpaid long service leave to a sample of 24 workers. Coles eventually had to back-pay in excess of $700,000 to more than 4000 staff as the investigation expanded.
The charges against the Commonwealth Bank businesses are similarly based on a sample done by the inspectorate with a mention hearing scheduled for October 10 in the Melbourne Magistrates Court.
The maximum penalty that can be imposed by the Magistrates Court is $10,904 a day for each day the long service leave was not paid – which could be potentially millions of dollars. The companies can also receive criminal convictions.
The Commonwealth Bank has been approached for comment.
Victoria’s long service leave laws require all employees who have worked continuously with one employer for at least seven years to be entitled to long service leave.
That includes permanent staff along with casual, seasonal and fixed term workers. They are to be paid any unused long service leave once they leave their job under the law.
The inspectorate has a number of cases before the courts for major companies failing to pay long service leave entitlements including against National Australia Bank, Optus and labour hire company Allstaff Australia.
The state regulator was set up in June last year to enforce state laws covering wage theft, child employment, long service leave and independent contractors.
It has provisions that allow the jailing of bosses who deliberately engage in wage theft, although they are yet to be tested in court. Failure to pay long service leave is not an offence that can result in jail time.
Separately the Commonwealth Bank has been taken to the Federal Court by federal workplace regulator the Fair Work Ombudsman for underpaying 7425 staff more than $16 million.
In 2019, the bank admitted it had underpaid 41,000 staff a total of $53 million as part of a review into its industrial relations practices. It was one of a string of major companies found to have underpaid its workers in recent years.
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