Star Entertainment to pay AU$13m in underpaid wages to current and former staff
The Star Entertainment Group has announced it will pay AU$13m (US$9.2m) to nearly 2,200 staff members.
Australia.- The Star Entertainment Group has revealed that it has identified an underpayment of wages to certain current and former workers and has commenced a process to pay out AU$m to make up the shortfall for those impacted. The underpayment was detected through a six-year retrospective wage review of salaried team members.
The Star Entertainment Group now plans to take a provision of AU$13m (US$9.2m) in its first half of the FY2020 accounts for the expected cost of remediation, which includes back payments, interest and superannuation contributions.
The Star’s MD & CEO Matt Bekier said: “We apologise to any team member impacted by the payment shortfall and we are committed to doing the right thing by acting transparently. Our priority is to address this issue and to ensure that it doesn’t happen again.”
The casino operator confirmed it will report its first-half financial results of the financial year 2022 on February 17. It said it expects to report normalised EBITDA of AU$28-AU$30m, and a normalised net loss of AU$73-AU$75m.
According to the statement, the Omicron variant of the Covid-19 pandemic impacted trading results in December and January, with a peak in mid-January.
Star Entertainment Group loses another lawsuit against insurers
Last month, Star Entertainment Group lost its legal claim for about AU$611,000 from insurers for losses of spoiled food and beverages due to Covid-19 shutdowns in 2020. According to The Mercury, a federal court rejected Star’s claim, noting that it was hindered by a $750,000 deductible in the company’s insurance policy.
