Discount grocery store Aldi could be ordered to pay up to $10 million to underpaid past and current staff after a Federal Court ruling found the German retailer had breached employment laws by directing workers to begin tasks before their rostered shift.
In October last year the court ruled in favour of four Aldi workers at a Sydney distribution centre, with Judge Douglas Humphreys saying he was satisfied there was a “clear implied direction” that employees had to arrive early to undertake certain tasks and that a consistent failure to comply would lead to disciplinary action.
Now the Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees Association (SDA) says others members in Aldi shops across the country have raised the same issue.
“This claim will be a lot larger than the warehouse claim with shop workers potentially owed tens of millions of dollars,” SDA NSW secretary Bernie Smith warned.
“Our decision to take Aldi to court confirms one simple principle – all time worked must be paid.
Rather than fix this issue by paying workers what they are owed we have had reports of Aldi attempting to minimise the cost of claims on the quiet. It’s really pretty simple, Aldi should check their records and pay the difference between when their employees clocked on and their rostered start time.”
An Aldi Australia spokesperson denied the retailer was minimising claims of underpayment.
The spokesperson said they had “recently received feedback from some of our store employees that they have been starting work as soon as they arrived at the store and punched-in”.
“On receiving this feedback, we took immediate steps to investigate if this was a widespread,” they said.
“We are in the process of working with employees across our stores to understand if they had been completing work duties outside of their rostered start or finish time.
“We expect to conclude these discussions with employees at the end of the month and any payments due to employees will be made.”
The spokesperson said that were addressing the matter as a “matter of urgency” because it was “simply the right thing to do”.
A post on social media site Reddit on Tuesday about the Aldi issue had garnered almost 80 comments by Wednesday evening.
One person warned it was “normal practice in the supermarket industry”.
“It used to really [piss me off, especially when my hourly rate was $5.27 when I was 16,” the person wrote.
Another said that clocking out at Aldi was “literally impossible”.
“Your till is linked to your name and can only be counted and put away AFTER the next shift has their till,” the person wrote.
Another person lamented that they wished they knew their rights as a retail worker as a teenager.
“I worked for Lincraft in the late ‘90s/early ‘00s and after all the customers left at closing time and we had to stay back to tidy and re-shelve all the bolts of fabric, buttons, ribbons etc,” the person wrote.
“Sometimes it took 45 minutes (especially on Saturdays). We also started 15 minutes before our shift. So essentially we worked an extra hour per shift for free.”
Do you know more? Contact carla.mascarenhas@news.com.au