Uniting Communities Incorporated (Uniting) will return more than $2.6 million in underpayments, including interest and superannuation, to about 1,500 current and former underpaid staff as part of entering into an Enforceable Undertaking (EU) with the Fair Work Ombudsman.
The South Australian community services provider has already rectified almost all of the underpayments identified to date, and a review into its non-compliance is ongoing with the employer committed to rectifying any further underpayments identified.
Uniting operates across 65 sites in South Australia. The large majority of the underpaid employees were in Adelaide but some were also in regional South Australia, and workers included those in full-time, part-time and casual roles.
Uniting provides services in the areas of counselling, disability, homelessness, legal, financial wellbeing, community support, older people, and families and young people. Underpaid employees included those working as support workers, adult and family counsellor service managers, project officers, financial counsellors, Lifeline counselling supervisors and home support community workers.
The underpayments occurred across a decade.
The causes of the underpayments included the organisation's payroll team having misapplied their Enterprise Agreements (EAs); a failure to apply annual wage increases to employees covered by the EAs; and payroll system deficiencies.
Uniting became aware of its potential underpayments after managers raised issues about their entitlements under their EA. Uniting checked its payroll system which confirmed its non-compliance, and began a broader review and remediation program to find out how much was underpaid. The review covers its various EAs and other industrial instruments.
Uniting self-reported its non-compliance to the Fair Work Ombudsman in May 2023.
The $2.6 million Uniting has largely back-paid relates to 1,483 current and former employees it underpaid between November 2015 and December 2025.
It is made up of underpaid wages exceeding $2 million, interest on top of this of more than $360,000, and superannuation of more than $216,000.
Back-payments to underpaid individual employees range from less than a dollar to more than $110,000, including superannuation and interest.
Identified underpayments have been rectified to all except 73 former employees who it has not yet found.
Fair Work Ombudsman Anna Booth said an EU was appropriate as Uniting had cooperated with the FWO's investigation and demonstrated a strong commitment to rectifying its non-compliance issues.
"Under the Enforceable Undertaking, Uniting Communities has committed to stringent measures to ensure all their workers are paid correctly. These measures include commissioning, at their own cost, at least two independent audits to check they are meeting all that is required under workplace laws," Ms Booth said.
"Uniting deserves credit for acknowledging its breaches and the underlying issues, and committing significant time and resources to put in place corrective measures that will ensure both full remediation of impacted staff and improved compliance for the future."
"The matter serves as a warning of the significant long-running problems that can result from an employer failing to have appropriate checks and balances to ensure workplace compliance. We expect employers to meet their legal obligations under their own enterprise agreements."
Under the EU, Uniting must implement a range of measures to ensure future compliance, including:
- Finishing its in-progress review, making back-payments in full where required, and giving the FWO a final report of its outcomes;
- Explaining to the FWO its system improvements and training for relevant staff to prevent future underpayments;
- Running a hotline for employees to raise queries about their entitlements, plus a formal complaints and review mechanism to ensure such complaints are handled in a timely manner;
- Prioritising workplace relations compliance monitoring through its Financial Risk Management and Audit Committee with periodic reporting to the FWO; and
- Telling staff about the EU through direct communication and intranet posts.
