ROUGHLY 25 Hunter workers underpaid "somewhere in the vicinity of $200,000 to $300,000" have helped uncover a national underpayment worth more than $7 million.
The Electrical Trades Union says some Hunter night shift staff at Kone flagged inconsistencies in their pay, sparking a union investigation.
Organiser Ash Bamford said further investigations revealed a total of 800 lift technicians across Australia were hit in the underpayment.
Kone said it announced incorrect payments had been detected in 2023, totalling about $7.8 million including superannuation and interest.
It would make repayments to the past and present workers in "August and September 2024", a spokesman said this week.
"These discrepancies were primarily discovered by Kone during the implementation of a new digital payroll system," a spokesman said.
"We sincerely apologise to all our current and former employees and regret the impact of these incorrect payments."
Mr Bamford said some of the underpayments were for allowances that hadn't been processed correctly, and had cost one Hunter worker more than $80,000.
This is money that theyve worked incredibly hard for and is rightfully theirs," he said.
ETU NSW/ACT secretary Allen Hicks said the Hunter workers speaking up had been an important step in rectifying the issue.
"It started with a group of union members in the Hunter raising issues with their pay and resulted in around 800 workers and their families finally getting the pay they've worked so hard for," Mr Hicks said.
