Further The Iconic Staff Underpayments Revealed

In December last year, The Iconic self-reported to the Fair Work Ombudsman following internal and external audits of its accounting systems which found it had underpaid staff over the period 2013 to 2020.

The Fair Work Ombudsmen is an independent statutory agency of the Government of Australia that serves as the central point of contact for free advice and information on the Australian national workplace relations system.

Founded in 2011, The Iconic employees over 1000 staff across its ecommerce fashion and accessories business across Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand.

Underpayment amounts vary from a few hundred to several thousand dollars and the company repaid $1.38 million (95 percent of the amount owed), to 800 current and former staff with superannuation and interest following the audit in December 2022.

In an expose released today, the Sydney Morning Herald reports The Iconic has now uncovered a further $200,937 in additional underpayments from 2020-2023. It reports that 551 staff had been underpaid a total of $200,937 in wages, interest, super and lost earnings. The errors were found as the company upgraded their payroll and HR systems.

In a statement, The Iconic said, “The Iconic deeply regrets that the issue has occurred. We take our obligations very seriously, and we believe that our new payroll and human resources systems as well as our ongoing vigilance in reviewing and upgrading our payroll processes and data minimises the risk of this happening again.”

According to the Sydney Morning Herald, there were instances where staff were also overpaid, but will not be asked to pay back the difference. Staff will be paid back a minimum of $50 even if they were underpaid less, as a gesture of “good faith.”
The company self-reported the additional underpayments once they were identified to the Fair Work Ombudsman and the online retailer has reportedly since established a team and processes to provide affected staff with information and support, and is in the final stages of remediation at this point.