I RECENTLY asked a number of exhausted junior residents how the community can best show their appreciation for their dedicated service at the frontline of the pandemic crisis. As all Australians owe these doctors a debt of gratitude for their contribution, we should be concerned that stopping public hospital “wage theft” was their answer.
Wage theft is no longer just an emotional term, or a cultural, doctor wellbeing or patient safety issue. It is a crime from which public hospital leaders are not exempt.
It has been widely publicised that in Victoria from July 2021, the Wage Theft Act 2020 (Vic) has made it a crime for an employer, including a government funded public hospital, to deliberately underpay employees, dishonestly withhold employee entitlements, fail to keep proper records of employee entitlements, or falsify employee entitlement records to gain a financial advantage. Offences under the Act attract a penalty of up to $991 320 for organisations and up to $198 264 for individuals, as well as up to 10 years’ imprisonment. Although Victoria is the first state to introduce this legislation, other states are following suit, and Federal Labor is pushing for national changes.
Given the severity of these penalties and the gravity of the pandemic crisis, it is disturbing that junior doctors have had to resort to class actions for tens of millions of dollars in wage theft against NSW Health, and against Peninsula Health, Monash Health, Latrobe Regional Hospital, Eastern...
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