The full bench of the Fair Work Commission has thrown out an appeal by the Northern Territory Government contesting a decision that it had underpaid firefighters by removing overtime hours, with the full bench noting the government changed its argument from what was contained in its notice of appeal when it came to oral arguments in the hearing.
In handing down his judgement in the matter of Manny Koulakis vs the NT Commissioner for Public Employment on March 21, after Mr Koulakis lodged an application on May 17 last year, Commissioner Bernie Riordan found the deduction of a portion of NT firefighters’ time-in-lieu hours accrued as part of compulsory overtime from their annual recreation leave, was contrary to the original 2017-2021 agreement signed with the Northern Territory Government, suggesting the practice of wiping their banked hours if not used within a year bordered on wage theft.
All those FAT Cats, and I mean FAT, that manage the NTG Payroll and HR systems for the last decade or so, should be held accountable (and fired) for the numerous payroll mistakes?
Anyone remember these blunders :
-the Superannuation blunder that affected many public servants over a decade or so?
-Multiple payroll blunders, effecting thousands of public servants, such as:
(1) “About 2000 workers across hospitals, prisons, and other major departments on 38-hour
contracts had for years been paid the same as colleagues on 36.75-hour contracts. This represents millions of dollars for thousands of workers across the Northern Territory public service and will catch staff up to where they should have been all along.”
(2) “The Northern Territory Government will have to pay millions in unpaid superannuation to thousands of public servants, while clawing back accidental overpayments to other highly paid staffers and more than a dozen members of Parliament.About 16,000 current and 41,000 former public servants may have been underpaid, with an estimated $20 million in payments owed and $10 million in interest.”
(3) “Northern Territory public servants received more than $3 million in overpayments last financial year, including one staff member whose bank balance ballooned by $93,000 in a single payroll error, the Auditor-General says.”
(4) “A NORTHERN Territory public servant found themselves nearly half a million dollars richer last year due to a payroll officer’s misplaced decimal.
The unidentified employee of the Department of Corporate and Information Services was meant to be paid $4921.76, but “human error” resulted in $492,176 being deposited into their bank account.”