With the news last week of Woolworths reportedly underpaying employees by hundreds of millions of dollars, I published a thread on Twitter that seeks to bring some challenges relating to this matter into focus. You’ll need to click on the link to see all the tweets in the thread.
Journalists writing about the underpayment of retail employees should read an award, like the General Retail Award: https://t.co/6kYacHl9mA This tweet is not an excuse, rather it is a sharing of important research on this topic.
— Mark Fletcher🧢 (@emef) October 31, 2019
Note: I have spoken with Fairwork folk about this several times, the most recent being 7pm Friday last week. That conversation was the clearest, the most unambiguous about classifications. The test is what they were hired for, what makes up most of their duties. If they fit with level 1, then that is their pay rate. However, nothing stops a challenge, where you will have to defend your position.
I have sought clarification from Fair Work several times over the years over the issue of classification. For example if I have to arrive at work 1 hr after opening does the employee who unlocked the door get paid level 3 for 1 hr? For the whole shift? Not at all? No one at Fair Work knows the answer
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