Mining giant BHP has admitted that it has underpaid about 28,500 current and former rostered employees across Australian operations.
In a statement, BHP said the company had incorrectly deducted leave on public holidays since 2010.
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The company estimated that the cost of fixing the leave issue would be up to US $280 million pre-tax, roughly around $430 million in Australian dollars.
“There are approximately 28,500 affected current and former employees with an average of six leave days in total that have been incorrectly deducted from affected employees over this 13-year period,” the company said in a statement.
BHP has self-reported to the Fair Work Ombudsman and will contact employees regarding remediation as soon as possible
It has also found that around 400 current and former employees at Port Hedland are entitled to additional allowances “due to an error with the employment entity in their contracts.
Geraldine Slattery, BHP’s Australian president, said: “We are sorry to all current and former employees impacted by these errors.”
“This is not good enough and falls short of the standards we expect at BHP. We are working to rectify and remediate these issues, with interest, as quickly as possible.”
The company says there will also be a dedicated hotline and installed website assistance from Friday this week.
BHP will continue investigating this matter and provide its full-year results in August.
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