DOMINO’S EFFECT
DOMINO’S Pizza has been hit with 17 formal cautions by the Fair Work Ombudsman and could face further action after it was found to be underpaying employees.
The ombudsman says only four of 23 stores it has finished investigating were fully compliant with workplace law, with breaches including non-payment for hours worked, delivery allowance and leave entitlements, unauthorised deductions, and record-keeping breaches.
Domino’s, which had already returned millions of dollars in underpaid wages and superannuation following its own audit, has been put on notice that future non-compliance could result in fines.
Ombudsman Sandra Parker said the results highlighted systemic issues.
“We expect better from a major network like Domino’s,” she said. “It should not be up to the Fair Work Ombudsman to find and alert businesses to the systemic issues identified.”
Inspectors interviewed 144 Domino’s workers and found 20 had been underpaid a total of $1978 in one month.
The ombudsman also noted Domino’s employed a large number of vulnerable people, with 72 per cent aged under 25 and nearly half of them visa holders. In addition, 65 per cent of audited franchisees were from non-English speaking backgrounds and had mini- mal knowledge of workplace laws.
Ms Parker said the ombudsman had been working with Domino’s for several years and, while the company had improved, it still needed to closely monitor stores. Domino’s claimed the majority of the issues were “administrative errors”, and said it correctly paid 97 per cent of employees.
Domino’s Australia chief executive Nick Knight said its compliance systems were “well advanced” compared with other businesses. He denied there were systemic issues.
“We have been saying for quite some time that there are no systemic issues across the business and the results from this investigation, as well as our own nationwide store audit, support this,” he said in a statement to the ASX.