Emirates retail arm admits to underpaying Aussie workers
Nov 11, 2019
Nine News
Emirates Leisure Retail has become the latest company to admit to underpaying its staff after failing to provide penalty rates to some of its employees for years.
The company - which is a subsidiary of the Emirates airline – employs about 650 Australian workers. It owns the cafe chain Hudsons Coffee, which has dozens of stores in airports and hospitals across Australia.
Among its other brands, Emirates Leisure Retail also owns the Coopers Alehouse bar at Sydney Airport and The Bistro by Wolfgang Puck.
A former staff member who worked at a Hudsons Coffee store in Sydney for several years told nine.com.au that she was surprised to get an email from Emirates Leisure Retail acknowledging the underpayment last month.
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Emirates Leisure retail operates dozens of Hudsons Coffee shops in Australian airports and hospital sites.
However, the staff member, Katie*, said she had always suspected she was not being paid the right amount.
"I have worked in hospitality a long time and in my other jobs they were paying us penalty rates. But at Hudsons we were not getting that. They weren't paying us penalty rates for the weekends, they weren't paying us for starting before 6am in the morning, or working after 7pm at night," she said.
A spokesperson for Emirates Leisure Retail told nine.com.au in a statement the "unintentional" staff underpayments had been spotted after a "proactive" review of the company's payroll records.
"A third-party payroll analyst was engaged to conduct a comprehensive review, which confirmed an error in the application of overtime, and night and weekend penalty rates, which is currently being analysed and quantified," the statement said.
Emirates Leisure Retail had chosen to report itself to the Fair Work Ombudsman, and was working to resolve the issue, it said.
"We apologise unreservedly for the error."
An email sent to Emirates Leisure Retail former and current staff, informing them of the underpayment issue.
The admission comes after last week's revelations that supermarket giant Woolworths has potentially underpaid nearly 6000 of its employees, and may owe as much as $300 million in back pay.
A spokesperson for Fair Work Ombudsman, Sandra Parker, confirmed it was investigating Emirates Leisure Retail.
"The Fair Work Ombudsman (FWO) can confirm Emirates Leisure Retail (Australia) Pty Ltd has come forward to admit that it has underpaid some of its staff," the spokesperson said.
"The FWO expects Emirates Leisure Retail to swiftly rectify these underpayments to their staff and will ensure that they do so.
"It is frustrating to see yet another example of a large corporation failing to pay their staff properly and a decision about the appropriate enforcement outcome will be made in due course."
Emirates Leisure Retail is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Emirates airline. (AP)
A spokesperson for Emirates Leisure Group said it was not yet known how many staff members had been affected by the underpayments,