Supermarket giant Aldi is facing a class action for allegedly deliberate underpayments of more than 20,000 workers totalling $150 million.
Supermarket giant Aldi has been accused of deliberately underpaying more than 20,000 current and former workers more than $150 million through unpaid work. The Shop Distributive and Allied Employees Association launched the class action in the Federal Court on Friday alleging Aldi over six years by requiring its store employees to work up to 30 minutes before their shift without pay.
A court last year found Aldi underpaid workers at a NSW distribution centre by directing them to start work 15 minutes before their rostered start time. The SDA claimed that while Aldi signalled it would conduct an internal audit of its workforce’s pay following the decision, the company had failed to rectify this and adequately compensate workers. SDA national secretary Gerard Dwyer said Aldi had its chance to do the right thing and backpay workers after they lost the Federal Court case.“They’ve fumbled the ball and failed to do it right by their workforce, now they have to face the consequences of these breaches,” he said. “This idea that Aldi workers – or any worker – should be expected to come in early or stay back late without pay is fundamentally unlawful and illegal.” The SDA notified Aldi weeks ago they would file the class action if the company did not fix its backpay but the union says it never received a response. However, on the same morning that the SDA filed the class action, Aldi emailed staff to say it had finished its external audit into underpayments, involving the assessment of 10 million shifts, and workers would be backpaid next week. “We discussed options to speed up the process, but we were advised it was not possible without potentially risking the accuracy of the calculations.”. It told staff it would provide further information over backpay in “the coming weeks”.An Aldi spokesman said that “making sure that our employees are paid correctly for their valuable contribution to our business is of paramount importance to us”. A union spokesman said it had “serious concerns that Aldi’s backpay plans are manifestly inadequate”, saying there was a “complete lack of transparency” around its calculations. Even if the backpay was correct, the supermarket could face significant penalties as the SDA is claiming that its practices were deliberate and systemic. The work-related tasks before shift starts included till changes, cashing up the register, performing safety checks, emptying bins and checking communication devices.Mr Dwyer said for Aldi to claim to be saving Australian families millions at the checkout and then severely undercutting workers’ wages “is a complete sham.”“This is not a minor hiccup by ALDI, this is a textbook example of deliberate, systemic and widespread wage theft.”after finding access to non-members’ details was not necessary to investigate the underpayments. Aldi opposed the application at the time, estimating it would take nine months to generate all the material and arguing all employees had been appropriately paid.
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