Regional supermarket chain settles more than five million dollars in backpay to employees

ABC NEWS (Australia)

Hundreds of supermarket workers in South Australia will share five-and-a-half-million-dollars in backpay after a lengthy underpayment case in the Federal Court. The owner of several regional Foodland stores has agreed to settle, in what the workers' union describes as one of the largest retail underpayment cases in the state's history.

Transcript

00:00Like many in the Kingston South East community,

00:07Talia Troth got her first job working at the local food land.

00:11Most of my friends and my peers, we all worked there

00:14because it was the only place to get a job after school

00:16that you could do for a couple hours and earn some pocket money.

00:19Over five years, Ms Troth rose to the position of assistant manager

00:23before realising she wasn't getting paid correctly.

00:26I was being paid a level three wage

00:29whereas the union informed me that we should have actually

00:32been sitting on a level five page to do my role.

00:35Ms Troth is one of more than 500 workers

00:38who've been underpaid by Udunda Farmers Limited.

00:41The company operates 23 supermarkets across regional South Australia

00:46and after a four year federal court case

00:49has agreed to back pay workers five and a half million dollars.

00:53It's one of the biggest retail underpayment settlements

00:56ever achieved in South Australian history.

00:58The Retail Workers Union says some employees were misclassified

01:02while others worked unpaid overtime or weren't correctly paid allowances.

01:07On average, each worker will receive almost $11,000 in back pay.

01:12One worker is set to receive more than $145,000.

01:17Huge validation when it came through that they had finally agreed,

01:20yes this wasn't okay, here is a settlement.

01:23Workers deserve to be paid properly to start with

01:26and we weren't prepared to settle for an amount that was less than what we thought workers were owed.

01:32In a statement, Foodland says Udunda Farmers Limited regretted any inconvenience caused.

01:37It says the company is working with employees and the union

01:41to ensure past payment discrepancies are rectified as a priority

01:45and that it continues to review and update its policies and procedures.

01:50It's expected workers will start receiving their back pay over the coming weeks.

01:55for a while.

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