Source : Perth Now news
National Australia Bank is paying a steep price of $169 million for underpaying thousands of their staff across the nation for years.
The financial giant has committed to paying $127 million, plus $34 million in interest and $8 million in superannuation as part of an enforceable undertaking with the Fair Work Ombudsman.
A $2 million contrition payment has also been imposed, the ombudsman said on Thursday.
The contrition payment is the largest ever included in an enforceable undertaking ordered by the ombudsman.
Back payments to the 66,000 impacted workers range from less than $5 to more than $87,000, including superannuation and interest, with an average back payment of about $1900.
Fair Work Ombudsman Anna Booth said the bank had committed to fixing up systems such as payroll.
“NAB’s underpayments highlight the serious, long-running problems that can arise when an employer fails to coordinate key business functions to meet their workplace obligations,” Ms Booth said.
“It’s particularly disappointing to see these types of large and long-running underpayment issues in such a well-resourced employer.”
NAB first self-reported underpayments to the ombudsman in late 2019, after it became aware it made significant errors applying its most recent enterprise agreement.
An internal review found they stretched back to 2012 due to record-keeping errors and outdated payroll technology being transferred across systems.
Other administrative blunders were discovered such as recording correct time-sheet data, staff not accruing leave correctly and other entitlements under successive enterprise agreements.
NAB executive Sarah White said the bank takes it payroll obligations “extremely seriously”.
“We sincerely apologise for these unintended errors. We have and will continue to remediate anyone who has been impacted.”
Never-before terms in the undertaking include a commitment to comprehensive planning and compliance with any future enterprise agreement.
The bank, which ranks third in size behind Commonwealth Bank and Westpac, achieved a net profit of $6.14 billion in 2026, in figures revealed in November.
In October, NAB announced it was cutting 2500 jobs but said these would affect senior management, corporate functions and administration with no material impact on customer-facing roles.
