Uniting Communities signs EU to return over $2.6m in underpayments

South Australian community services provider Uniting Communities has signed an enforceable undertaking (EU) with the Fair Work Ombudsman to back pay around 1,500 current and former underpaid staff.

Uniting Communities Incorporated, which operates across 65 sites in South Australia, is returning more than $2.6 million in underpayments, including interest and superannuation, to about 1,500 current and former underpaid staff as part of an EU signed with the Fair Work Ombudsman (FWO).

The community services provider has already rectified almost all of the underpayments identified to date, the ombudsman noted, and a review into its non-compliance is ongoing, with the employer committed to rectifying any further underpayments identified.

The underpayments occurred across a decade, FWO said, and causes included the organisation’s payroll team having misapplied its enterprise agreements (EAs), a failure to apply annual wage increases to employees covered by the EAs, and payroll system deficiencies.

Uniting Communities became aware of its potential underpayments after managers raised issues about their entitlements under their EA, the FWO said. Following this, the provider checked its payroll system, which confirmed its non-compliance, and began a broader review and remediation program to find out how much was underpaid.

Under the EU, Uniting Communities must, among other things, explain to the FWO its system improvements and training for relevant staff to prevent future underpayments, run 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, and tell staff about the EU through direct communication and intranet posts.

The provider self-reported its non-compliance to the Fair Work Ombudsman in May 2023 and has largely back paid 1,483 current and former employees it underpaid between November 2015 and December 2025.

The unpaid wages exceed $2 million, with interest amounting to over $360,000, and superannuation more than $216,000. The back payments being made range from less than a dollar to more than $110,000, including superannuation and interest.

Identified underpayments have been rectified for all except 73 former employees, whom the provider has not yet found.

Fair Work Ombudsman Anna Booth said that an EU was appropriate, as Uniting Communities 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 [its] 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,” she 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.”