Via CPSU’s REPORT INTO CASUAL UNDERPAYMENT AT THE AUSTRALIAN BROADCASTING CORPORATION:
Executive summary
The Community and Public Sector Union is the largest of the ABC staff unions, with coverage of approximately 3,000 ABC workers. Our union has been advocating for the ABC and its workers since the ABC’s inception in 1932. The CPSU was also the union that brought the issue of ABC casual underpayment to light in November last year, when a CPSU member formally disputed their casual pay.
In January 2019, the ABC announced that it was investigating the potential underpayment of up to 2,500 of its current and former casual employees. To date, the ABC maintains that the underpayments were an honest mistake and has strenuously rejected accusations of ABC wage theft. Yet many questions about what the ABC’s leadership did and did not know are yet to be addressed by the ABC ten months on. The ABC’s 2018-2019 annual report has placed the cost of this underpayment at 22.9 million dollars.
The CPSU has conducted its own investigations into ABC casual underpayment this year, including interviewing and surveying 162 current and former ABC casual employees and looking through the employment records of an additional 63 CPSU members engaged as ABC casual employees. This report identifies 12 key findings and 16 recommendations which the CPSU believes are necessary for the ABC to implement, if it is to meet its governance obligations, and achieve and maintain high standards as an employer.
In this report, the CPSU has identified that the ABC had at least ten significant opportunities to review their casual employee payments over the last six years, and that it seemingly failed to do so.
These opportunities included when new ABC Enterprise Agreements came into effect, when ABC casual loadings were increased from 20 to 25%, and most significantly in April 2016 when the CPSU and the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA) formally raised concerns about casual underpayment in ABC enterprise bargaining and a jointly endorsed union log of claims.
Beyond these formal opportunities, the CPSU has also identified that over the last six years there have been countless conversations between ABC casual employees and their managers about pay in which the ABC did not identify or address the issue.
The CPSU also identified that the ABC has committed numerous breaches of its own Enterprise Agreement, and breaches of the Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth). This report puts forward recommendations that the ABC can implement now to ensure its policies, procedures and reporting support ABC compliance into the future, including the cessation of the dodgy payment arrangements responsible for the underpayments in the first instance.
The CPSU also believes that the ABC’s leadership should address internal cultural problems that enabled casual underpayment to occur undetected for as long as it did, including the role they played in creating that culture. The CPSU believes that unrelenting budget pressures and subpar employment advice have given rise to a culture in some parts of the organisation where it is okay to treat casual employees as second class workers; it is okay not to pay casual employees penalties for working on weekends or public holidays; it is okay not to give casual employees pay increases; and it is okay to tell casual employees to go elsewhere if they raise questions about their pay. These things routinely happened in the ABC and they are not okay.
This culture has enabled casual underpayment, and it will enable other risks and liabilities for the ABC if it is not properly addressed.
The CPSU has recommended better quality training to support ABC managers to fully understand their obligations to casual employees under the ABC Enterprise Agreement. The CPSU also recommends the ABC leadership pay closer attention to the tone it sets when it comes to casual employees. The ABC’s casual workforce are an integral part of the ABC’s success and more needs to be done to create an inclusive and supportive workplace for ABC casual employees.
It has been ten months since the ABC announced that it underpaid up to 2,500 of its casual employees. To date none of the ABC’s current or former casual employees have been paid the money they are owed, nor has the ABC’s leadership been transparent or accountable for the work that is being done in this space.
The ABC’s leadership must explain to the ABC workforce and the broader community how this happened, who is responsible, and what changes it will make to ensure that this does not happen again. CPSU members will continue to put this issue in the public realm until they do.
Got to fund the $1m managing director somehow:
The ABC boss’ pay has surged past $1 million for the first time while the SBS chief took home just over $800,000, the broadcasters’ newly released annual reports have revealed.
David Anderson, who became acting managing director at the ABC in September last year after Michelle Guthrie was sacked, started in the role permanently in May.
Mr Anderson’s total pay for 2018-19 was $1.14 million, including a base salary of $799,000, $73,000 in superannuation and $266,000 for long service leave.
I guess it’s not your ABC after all.
