Apology: BHP president of Australia Geraldine Slattery
BHP is facing a £225m bill after the world’s biggest listed miner revealed that it underpaid nearly 30,000 workers for 13 years.
The company reported itself to Australia’s workplace regulator and has contracted an independent company to review its payroll systems.
BHP had incorrectly deducted leave on public holidays since 2010 for an average of six days in total per person for the majority of its current and former workers – consisting 28,500 people.
It is not clear how the mistake occurred at the firm which has its headquarters in Melbourne and is a leading producer of iron ore, nickel, copper and potash.
But BHP president of Australia Geraldine Slattery issued an apology to affected employees.
‘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.’
BHP said the £225m reflected its share of the costs which included pension and interest payments. The company will provide an update in August.
Australia is known for its strong workplace protections.
The Mining and Energy Union said BHP had been ‘sprung ripping workers off’.
‘Today’s revelation goes to show that we need to keep up the pressure on big companies like BHP to do the right thing,’ general secretary Grahame Kelly said.
In January 2022, BHP scrapped its dual listing on London’s FTSE 100 after pressure from investors to simplify its clunky Anglo-Australian corporate structure. More than 97 per cent of shareholders in London voted in favour of the plans, which moved the main stock market listing to Sydney and ended a 20-year-old arrangement, where the group comprised two companies – BHP Ltd, which was listed in Australia, and BHP plc, listed in London.
The idea was to allow it to raise money, provide greater returns to shareholders and to carry out deals more easily.
But as pointed out by Russ Mould, investment director at AJ Bell, the share price has not responded – and is down over 13 per cent in the year to date.
‘Whether that is down to weaker metals and commodities prices in some instances, shareholder reticence over merger and acquisition deals, worries about a global recession or a combination of the three is hard to tell,’ he said.
BHP has about 80,000 employees and contract workers and runs the largest copper mine in the world in Chile.
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