Toys’R’Us back-pays $1 million to staff
retail giant toys’r’us is setting up a whistleblower hotline for its staff to complain about wages and conditions after an investigation by the fair work ombudsman found the company was underpaying its employees.
fair work ombudsman executive director michael campbell says the company must publicise the hotline to all staff and ensure it investigates any concerns raised by employees about underpayment of wages or other entitlements.
campbell says the company is also donating $300,000 towards the cost of education and training needs of young and vulnerable workers and the protection of their rights at work.
“the conditions are part of an enforceable undertaking that toys’r’us has signed after the fair work ombudsman agreed to discontinue legal action against the company,” he says.
the fair work ombudsman announced in january last year that it was prosecuting toys’r’us for breaches of workplace law, but has since accepted that the contraventions were inadvertent and not deliberate.
toys’r’us voluntarily back-paid more than 1,000 of its workers a total of $998,000 in march 2009 for underpaid entitlements including the minimum hourly rate and penalty rates for weekend, public holiday and night shifts between 2007 and 2009.
toys’r’us has appointed new management to its human resources department and says it has taken a number of steps to ensure that this does not occur again.
