Why Does Wage Theft Matter to Employers

Why does wage theft matter to employers who believe their pay is broadly right? Because of what happens when records are thin.

Where an employer fails record-keeping or pay slip obligations without a reasonable excuse, a reverse onus can apply. The employer then has to disprove the allegations about the wage claim, rather than the employee having to prove them.

In practice that means the employee’s account of the hours worked becomes the starting point, and an organisation without reliable time and pay records has very little to answer it with.

Record-keeping and pay slip breaches also attract civil penalties of their own, separate from the underpayment.

Fixing the records now is usually cheaper and considerably faster than fixing an argument about what they should have said later on.

The Fair Work Ombudsman publishes record-keeping obligations. This is general information rather than legal advice, and obligations vary by state and territory.

See Sentrient’s records management software and wage theft webinar.