Crown Perth compensates underpaid employees

Crown Perth employees have received back pay up to $55,000 to correct the resort and casino operator's underpayment of more than $1 million to staff in Western Australia and Melbourne over a six-year period.

Crown Resorts has paid back almost 200 of its former and current employees from Crown Perth in Burswood and Crown Melbourne in Southbank, and has signed an enforceable undertaking with the Fair Work Ombudsman. 

Ninety employees who worked at Crown's gaming, entertainment and hotel complex in Perth have been paid a share of $659,000, with individual payments ranging from $5 to $55,192 for some employees.

More than $567,000 in back payments were made to 102 workers in Melbourne, with individual payments ranging from $22 to $55,714.

The payments included superannuation, interest and an additional gratuity payment of 10 per cent, according to the ombudsman.

Both businesses will also fork out a combined $350,000 contrition payment to the Commonwealth consolidated revenue fund, under the enforceable undertaking signed with the Fair Work Ombudsman.

An audit review conducted by Crown revealed that both businesses had underpaid staff after incorrectly identifying some of its employees as award-free and by also underpaying entitlements including penalty rates, minimum hourly rates, overtime and paid leave rates.

Crown Resorts, the Crown Group’s parent company, self-reported the underpayments to the FWO in March 2020.

Fair Work ombudsman Sandra Parker said an enforceable undertaking was appropriate as Crown had cooperated with the FWO’s investigation and demonstrated a strong commitment to rectifying underpayments.

“Under the EU, Crown has committed to implementing stringent measures to ensure all its current and future workers are paid correctly. These measures include commissioning, at its own cost, two independent annual audits to check its compliance with workplace laws,” she said.

“As I called out to the ASX top 100 in early 2020 and have said consistently ever since, employers need to place a high priority on their workplace obligations.

“Crown’s failures to apply relevant awards to some of its employees and to ensure annual salaries met all minimum entitlements for hours worked led to long-running underpayments of its staff, and a larger remediation bill.

“All employers need to invest the time and resources to ensure they are meeting all lawful entitlements.”