A decision at the Federal Circuit Court has ordered ALDI to rectify an underpayment of up to 4000 warehouse workers for unpaid ‘pre-work’ checks that at the Court has found to constitute work tasks. The SDA claims the unpaid time amounts to more the $10 million that will need to be back paid.
The case hinged around the SDA claim that since 2018 ALDI has required all staff to be at the workplace 15 minutes before the start of their shift, and that in that 15 minutes staff were performing work tasks and thus should have been paid.
ALDI’s response amounted to stating that the workers were not doing unpaid work tasks, that they were just expected to be ‘ready to begin’ at the beginning of their shift.
The work tasks that the SDA outlined the staff were doing included more than clocking in, proceeding to the workstation and stowing personal items. The SDA showed that workers were doing these usual pre-shift actions, but in addition they were required to locate their picker (fork-lift), do a pre drive safety check on the picker, drive the picker to the muster point for the beginning of the shift warm up.
The SDA claimed that these checks and equipment movements amounted to work tasks, and the Judge agreed.
With the determination that the pre drive checks and movements were work tasks the discussion turned to how long these tasks take, with SDA claiming that it was 15 minutes per shift of unpaid time and ALDI providing evidence (CCTV) that individuals could complete the checks in between 26 seconds and five minutes.
In making the determination Judge Humphreys was unconvinced by ALDI video evidence, noting that it likely represented outliers not the average, and determining that the average time was much more likely to be 10 minutes.
The Judge did not set a formula for determining the impact on each individual employee or on the amount to be back paid, rather he directed the SDA and ALDI to work collaboratively and confer on how compensation should be structured.
“There is more than a headline here, there are lessons that every business, particularly those in transport and retail, need to heed”, noted ACAPMA’s Elisha Radwanowski.
“I encourage all Members to review the implications of this case on their operations and the interplay with bundy clocks”, concluded Elisha.
For more information on the implications of this case see; https://acapmag.com.au/2022/10/industry-lessons-from-ALDI-underpayments/.
Elisha Radwanowski BCom (HRM&IR)
ACAPMA
Source: https://acapmag.com.au/2022/10/ALDI-10-million-underpayment-finding/.
