Payroll bungle for local workers

Staff working for North Queensland’s largest disability service provider have been underpaid for years and are owed about $1.7 million.

Former and current employees of Cootharinga North Queensland were involved in a pay dispute which sparked an internal review of the company’s payroll system last October.

The organisation agreed to do a full audit of employees’ pays from July 1, 2015, to October 30, 2022, which revealed a $1.7 million underpayment to staff over this time period.

Issues with incorrect application of equal remuneration orders, inconsistent recognition of qualifications, casual loading not always being applied correctly were among some of the issues identified as the cause of the underpayments.

Cootharinga said employees impacted by the issue were notified earlier this week, with back payments to be made to all current employees on Thursday, April 6.

The NQ organisation employs more than 500 staff — mostly disability support workers — offering various services, including in-home and community support.

Cootharinga chief executive officer Matt Kinnane said they deeply regretted the errors and apologised to affected employees.

“Our employees are the backbone of our organisation,” he said.

“The work they do with our clients – and for the communities in which we work – has a value beyond measure.

“We always seek to pay our employees correctly, and we would never intentionally underpay anyone.

The company said it found there had been instances of overpayment of entitlements but will not seek to recover that money, and that it had made changes to ensure underpayments would not happen again.