St Vincent’s hospitals and aged care businesses sign Enforceable Undertaking
Hospital and aged care businesses operated by St Vincent’s Health Australia Ltd are back-paying staff in NSW and Queensland more than $4.4 million and have signed an Enforceable Undertaking (EU) with the Fair Work Ombudsman.
St Vincent’s Health Australia, Australia’s largest not-for-profit health and aged care provider, self-reported to the regulator in July 2021 that the four businesses it operates had underpaid hospital employees in NSW and aged care workers in Queensland.
St Vincent’s Health Australia identified the underpayments after putting in place new enterprise agreements prompted it to conduct an internal review.
The entities that have entered into the EU with the Fair Work Ombudsman are St Vincent’s Private Hospitals Ltd, St Vincent’s Hospital Sydney Limited, St Vincent’s Care Services Ltd, and St Vincent’s Private Hospital Sydney.
Poor payroll, human resources and governance practices led to the businesses failing to provide employees with their full entitlements under the applicable enterprise agreements between 2014 and 2020.
More than $3.7 million of the underpayments occurred in NSW. The majority of these underpayments affected nursing and support staff at St Vincent’s private and public hospitals at Darlinghurst in Sydney, St Vincent’s private hospital in Griffith and the Mater Hospital in North Sydney.
Employees were primarily underpaid their annual leave loading entitlement payable to shift-workers, and a weekly allowance based on their length of service, whilst some casual nurses were underpaid overtime entitlements.
Aged care workers in Queensland were underpaid a total of almost $400,000 in annual leave entitlements. They worked at St Vincent’s aged care facilities and in home care programs across Queensland as aged care workers, clinical managers, nurses, home-care workers, nursing assistants and personal care assistants.
In total, the four businesses are back-paying more than 2,700 current and former employees more than $4.4 million, including $4.02 million in wages and entitlements, plus $266,731 in superannuation and $135,666 in interest.
Individual back-payments range from less than $1 to more than $87,300. The average back-payment is just over $1,637.
In addition, one of the businesses, St Vincent's Care Services Ltd, has credited annual leave entitlements worth about $650,000, including super and interest, to its impacted current employees.
The large majority of employees have already been back-paid, including all those that have been found, and, under the EU, the businesses must back-pay all staff by the end of June 2024.
Fair Work Ombudsman Anna Booth said an EU was appropriate as the businesses cooperated with the FWO’s investigation and demonstrated a strong commitment to rectifying underpayments.
“Under the Enforceable Undertaking, the businesses have committed to implementing stringent measures to ensure all of their workers are paid correctly. These measures include commissioning, at their own cost, an independent audit to check that they are fully complying with all aspects of workplace laws,” Ms Booth said.
Ms Booth said the matter serves as a warning to all employers that they must place a high priority on ensuring they are meeting all their workers’ lawful entitlements.
“In this matter, lack of investment in human resources and poor governance led to long-term breaches and significant staff underpayments and rectification costs,” Ms Booth said.
“We expect all employers – including those in the care sector, a FWO priority in
2023-24 – to have governance systems in place to ensure they meet all entitlements.”
The EU requires the businesses to engage an independent specialist to conduct an audit, operate a telephone hotline for employees to make enquiries until March 2024, and publish notices about the EU and their contraventions on their websites.
Employers and employees can visit www.fairwork.gov.au or call the Fair Work Infoline on 13 13 94 for free advice and assistance. An interpreter service is available on 13 14 50.