This week in HR news: Charges laid

In this week’s round-up of HR news, two companies and an individual have been hit with charges over poor processes.

Meanwhile, the value of commercial properties is dropping as more people are opting to work from home. What’s this got to do with superannuation?

Company hit with record fine

A record $2 million fine and conviction for an NSW tree removal company was discussed by The Guardian.

A1 Arbor Tree Services was hit with this penalty over a 2019 incident in which a 40-year-old man was pulled into a faulty woodchipper.

The court also found that the site lacked supervision, and workers didn’t receive the appropriate training to operate the machinery.

Work Health and Safety Minister Sophie Cotsis said the record fine and landmark conviction “puts everyone across NSW on notice”.

Underpayment fines

Another company was hit with penalties recently. This time, it was franchisor Bakers Delight.

Accountants Daily revealed that the organisation was underpaying 142 mostly young staff, totalling $1.25 million between July 2017 and October 2020.

Three Hobart stores saw extensive underpayment, and the franchisor is liable for $642,162 in these three stores alone.

Acting Fair Work ombudsman Kristen Hannah commented on the breach: “We will use all laws and powers at our disposal to ensure franchisors are held to account when they fail to address non-compliance in their networks.”

“In this case, we allege Bakers Delight Holdings was aware many young workers at these three Hobart stores had been underpaid but failed to take reasonable steps to prevent further underpayments occurring.”

Contract breach

As reported by Lawyers Weekly, Peter Van Onselen was found to have breached his redundancy contract with Network Ten after writing an article for The Australian.

NSW Supreme Court Justice David Hammerschlag said the article was “not a trivial or insignificant matter”, and the implications could “self-evidently undermine the confidence of investors”.

According to Network Ten, the article breached Dr Van Onselen’s non-disparagement clause, making the company appear “weak, commercially unviable and/or worthless” and by implicating its news ratings were “embarrassingly poor”.

Dr Van Onselen left Network Ten in March, after complaints of alleged misconduct were directed at the former employee. Dr van Onselen disagreed about relocating his position to Canberra, and his role was made redundant. He received a payment of $165,491, including an ex gratia payment of $71,563.

Office prices plummeting, spelling trouble for superannuation

In other news, remote working seems to be impacting office property prices across the country, said ABC News.

The increase of empty office spaces in CBD areas is driving prices down, which is reportedly having an effect on retirement savings.

“Every major superannuation fund has an element of exposure to commercial real estate,” said Dwight Hillier, managing director of valuation services at Colliers.

“Moving forward, there will be pressure on returns for those super funds.”

The Australian Retirement Trust (ART) is one such organisation that has been hit, with the value of office towers in its portfolio dropping by as much as 15 per cent. Cbus saw a similar decline, with commercial real estate falling by over 10 per cent.

This strain on super funds could result in members losing money. With office property seeing its worst quarterly decline since 2009 and prices expected to keep dropping, this issue may only get worse.