IBM repays millions to staff after messing up its own payroll
- Reference: 1599811931
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/09/11/ibm_australia_wage_repayments/
- Source link:
Australian industrial relations laws and rates of pay can be notoriously variable depending on staff qualifications and duties. IBM appears to have run afoul of some details as its transgressions mostly involved vehicle allowances, payments into employee pension funds and the odd Australian practice of topping up pay packets by a little when staff take their holidays.
IBM has form messing up Australian payrolls, having been involved in the [1]billion-dollar blowout of a payroll project in the State of Queensland’s Department of Health.
The Office of Australia’s Fair Work Ombudsman, an agency with broad industrial relations powers, [2]said Big Blue “had cooperated with the investigation and demonstrated a strong commitment to rectifying all underpayments.”
IBM committed 'ethical transgressions' to win botched project [3]READ MORE
But IBM has still been required to agree to an [4]Enforceable Undertaking that requires it to conduct further calculations on what it got wrong and arrange repayments, then make two “contrition payments” to Australia’s government. Those payments will be equal to 5.25 per cent of the underpayments IBM identifies for all employees.
IBM Australia has also “committed to stringent measures to comply with the law and protect its workforce. This includes engaging, at its own cost, an expert auditing firm to conduct an independent assessment of the outcomes of its rectification program and to audit its compliance with workplace laws over the next two to three years,” said Ombudsman Sandra Parker.
IBM appears to have erred, rather than to have intended to underpay staff. However, numerous large Australian retailers have been caught out after under-paying staff by design. The practice has come to be known as “wage theft” and the Ombudsman and Unions have criticised it heavily.
Ombudsman Parker did not use the term in this case, but IBM’s name is likely to be appended to a list of shame for some time to come regardless of its decent response to this situation. ®
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[1] https://www.theregister.com/2015/12/08/ibm_vs_queensland_health_payroll_decision/
[2] https://www.fairwork.gov.au/about-us/news-and-media-releases/2020-media-releases/september-2020/20200911-imb-eu-media-release#twitter
[3] https://www.theregister.com/2013/08/06/ibm_committed_ethical_transgressions_to_win_botched_project/
[4] https://www.fairwork.gov.au/ArticleDocuments/1545/IBM-EU-Final.pdf.aspx
[5] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
SAP
obviously
Incompetence or Evil
El Reg» IBM appears to have erred, rather than to have intended to underpay staff.
Yes. That is what must have happened. Senior management wouldn't have allowed the organisation to develop a culture of wrong-doing, merely just a culture of incompetence.
Re: Incompetence or Evil
Hey, you can be completely evil and still make an honest mistake.
I can well imagine some IBM exec saying something like "Wait, we did that -by accident-? Damn! If only we'd meant it, we could have done it so much better!"
Odd indeed
"and the odd Australian practice of topping up pay packets by a little when staff take their holidays" - Even senior people can get it as part of an "award". My first full-time Oz job Was as a "General Manager". I had bought a new car when I arrived a few months before, to be told that the award gave me an air-conditioned automatic transmission car, and that I was not allowed to take cash instead. After a year I took leave, and while I was away my salary was paid into my account - It seemed to have an overpayment of 17.5%, but when I queried it, I was told that I had "forgotten" my "leave allowance". A workers paradise indeed.
So which software company wrote IBM's payroll system in Australia?