Labour hire company Hudson Global Resources (Aust) Pty. Ltd. will back-pay more than AUD 4.5 million (USD 3.2 million) to underpaid workers as part of an “Enforceable Undertaking” signed with Australia’s Fair Work Ombudsman.

Some 5,325 current and former “on-hire,” or contingent workers, were underpaid between 2014 and 2020, according to the Ombudsman. Individual underpayments ranged from AUD 1 to AUD 19,445. Employees were based across Australia and included receptionists, business analysts and customer service officers.

HUDSON CEO MARK STEYN:  

“We sincerely apologise to all of our on-hire employees who were incorrectly paid,” Hudson CEO Mark Steyn said. “Fixing these issues is our top priority, and we are currently back paying any shortfalls and have ensured our current on-hire employees are being paid correctly.” 

The Ombudsman announced the Enforceable Undertaking on Thursday.

“Under the Enforceable Undertaking, Hudson has committed to implementing stringent measures to improve compliance and protect the rights of its workforce,” Fair Work Ombudsman Sandra Parker said. “These measures include engaging, at the company’s own cost, an independent auditing firm to check its compliance with workplace laws during the next two years.”

Parker said the company demonstrated a commitment to rectifying all underpayments and changing its practices.

The award amount includes underpayments as well as interest. The company must also make an AUD 172,000 (USD 122,895) “contrition payment” to the Commonwealth’s Consolidated Revenue fund.

Hudson is also required to display website notices, pay for a boosted Facebook notice that will promote details of what happened, apologise to workers, provide training to managerial staff and create a hotline for employees to raise any back payment questions.

Hudson said this in a statement to the media:

As part of a proactive internal review undertaken in 2020, we identified errors in the way we applied Modern Awards and assigned Modern Award classifications to our on-hire employees for some of their assignments, and how they have been subsequently paid.  

As a result, certain on-hire employees’ pay has not been sufficient to meet the minimum entitlements under the relevant Modern Awards. 

We sincerely apologise to all of our on-hire employees impacted by these oversights. 

We self-reported this matter to the Fair Work Ombudsman in 2020 and have been cooperating with them in relation to our review as well as the steps we are taking towards remediation. Hudson has also put robust systems and processes in place to ensure we are applying awards correctly and that our on-hire employees are now receiving the appropriate minimum entitlements.

To date, we have completed a review of over 80% of all of the assignments that are in-scope over the six-year review period. Notwithstanding that the review remains ongoing, we have commenced a communication and remediation process to back pay those employees who been identified as having been underpaid.