Woolworths boss Brad Banducci says Australia’s complex and inflexible industrial relations system makes it nearly impossible to avoid paying senior executives their full salary entitlements.
“It’s a very difficult system to navigate, it’s very complex, and the consequence of that is that from time to time – or actually every time – there will be salaries and bonuses paid to senior staff that are 100% what they should be,” Banducci said.
“The system makes it very hard to work out precisely what our leadership team should be paid, and the upshot is we’ve got it right again this year”.
Business Council of Australia chief executive Jennifer Westacott said the correct payments to Banducci’s direct team were understandable. “We need to make sure we aren’t creating an industrial relations system that is so complex that it is vulnerable to inadvertent senior payroll accuracies,” she said.