Remediation”. It was the first crack in what he had always assumed was a solid foundation. The next few weeks were a blur of internal audits and an office atmosphere thick with unspoken anxiety. The whispers grew louder. A significant Federal Court ruling meant their long- standing pay model was not compliant. The heart of the ruling was simple, even if the implications were not. His company had relied on a set-off clause in their contracts, which meant the generous salary was designed to cover all his award entitlements. Base pay, overtime, penalty rates for Sundays and public holidays and night shifts, all averaged across the year. Quiet Januarys were meant to balance the frantic peak seasons. The court had decided this was not lawful.
Every single pay period had to stand on its own. An overpayment in one fortnight could not be used to cover a shortfall in the next. Liam scrolled through the Fair Work Ombudsman guidelines and felt the weight of each sentence. His stomach tightened as he compared his rosters to the award. The real issue was the peak periods, the Christmas rush and major sales events where he regularly pulled sixty or seventy hour weeks. When he divided his salary by those hours, his effective rate often fell below the minimum. Sometimes far below it. Liam had trusted his company. He believed his hard work was being fairly rewarded and, to be fair, the company believed that too. But realising that he had been legally underpaid for years felt like a physical blow. It was a strange mix of anger, humiliation and a deep sense of betrayal. The thought kept circling in his mind. He had given them his twenties. The late nights. The missed
He was part of the generation perched between the veterans who had seen it all and the eager graduates still wet behind the ears. His aspiration was simple and ambitious at the same time. He wanted to be the Operations Manager within five years. He and his partner shared a Pinterest board full of tiny home designs and a joint savings goal that seemed to drift further away every time the rent went up in their humble inner-west Sydney home. He saw his reliable, above-award annualised salary as the rocket fuel for those shared dreams. Then one day came the email that made his hair stand on end. The subject line read, “Important Update Regarding Annualised Salary Review and
The whispers grew louder. A significant Federal Court ruling meant their long-standing pay model was not compliant.
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ISSUE 18 GLOBAL PAYROLL MAGAZINE
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