Tens of thousands of McDonald's NZ staff who were employed from 2009 to 2020 could receive payouts as the company remediates a historical payroll botch-up.
An online form for remediation payments was opened to applications on Monday.
The payments relate to annual leave and holiday annual leave pay for employees who worked for the chain between November 11, 2009 and December 6, 2020.
But a union at the heart of the case has said the remediation portal is "misleading" and has hit out at McDonald's over how it's handling the payments scheme.
It comes five years after the fast food giant reached an agreement to backdate miscalculated holiday pay to employees.
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Thousands of companies and government agencies have paid hundreds of millions over the past decade to remediate Holidays Act breaches.
Not all employees who worked in the 11-year period are necessarily owed money.
Remediation payments do not cover if a franchisee owner has closed their company.
Owed money is expected to be paid out within a month of approval by business owners.
In November 2019, Unite Union said it believed as many as 60,000 staff could be affected. A spokesperson for McDonald's said today the number would be lower.
However, they said the number of workers owed money would likely still be in the "tens of thousands" as the fast food chain employed 10,000 people at any given time.
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"Our stated commitment from the start was to pay back any monies the remediation identified as being owed. The project has been one of the most complex remediations undertaken and completed to date," spokesperson Simon Kenny said in a statement.
"McDonald’s worked with MBIE, current and former franchisees, and third-party experts, spending millions of dollars and tens of thousands of hours to get to the point where we can commence the remediation payments."
The company, nor the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE), commented on the total amount of money owed to employees.
Labour Inspectorate manager of specialist inspection Jeanie Borsboom said extensions on McDonald's agreed dates of compliance "were granted because of complexities".
"This remediation has been particularly complex given the number of franchisees McDonald’s needed to coordinate with," she said in a statement.
Union hits out at 'unders and overs' approach
Unite Union national secretary John Crocker said he was concerned the online portal was "misleading", and said he was "disappointed" in MBIE. He told 1News yesterday the union wasn't aware of the total number of workers now owed money.
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Crocker said in a media release: “We urge all current and former McDonald’s employees to contact McDonald’s in writing and ‘withdraw your consent to deductions’ and tell them you want the full figure of underpayments.
“McDonald’s is taking an ‘unders and overs’ approach to the calculations, where their claimed overpayments are used to offset the money they owe workers.
"Firstly, we don’t think they have a legal basis for that claim, and secondly workers aren’t obligated to agree to that, they’re free to decline the offsets. But their portal doesn’t give workers that option."
He also criticised the fact that employees of franchisees who had closed their company would not be part of the remediation case.
"These people have effectively sold their business, or franchise, with a known debt obligation to their workers, onto another franchisee," Crocker said.
"McDonald’s has been all over this transaction, and approved it, with complete disregard for the workers who are owed money."
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McDonald's spokesperson Simon Kenny said the offsetting approach was "consistent with other Holidays Act remediations and in line with the Wages Protection Act".
"The remediation portal has been designed to allow individuals to transparently review offsetting, and provide the choice to offset or not."
He added that McDonald's had "worked in good faith to get as many former franchisees who operated during the remediation period to participate".
"Given its franchise structure, the McDonald’s remediation involves over 50 different business entities, each with their own enforceable undertaking with MBIE," Kenny said.
"Given the historic 10-year remediation period, some restaurants may have been operated by both current and former McDonald’s franchisees.
"In a handful of cases it was not possible to get the information required to do calculations for some current or former employees.
"This was because their ex-employer wound up their company and does not have an enforceable undertaking, or does have an enforceable undertaking but opted out of the McDonald’s remediation process."
He said "calculations have been made for the majority of people who worked for a McDonald’s restaurant during the remediation period".
"If an individual believes they may be owed money by a business not included in the remediation, they should contact MBIE as the regulator."
