RSPCA QLD's $4.3M Underpayment: What an Enforceable Undertaking Means (and How to Check If You're Underpaid)

On 18 June 2026, the Fair Work Ombudsman (FWO) announced that RSPCA Queensland had entered into an enforceable undertaking after underpaying its staff approximately $4.3 million, including interest and superannuation. The underpayments affected roughly 1,008 current and former employees across 14 locations in Queensland — including Brisbane (where most of the underpayments occurred), the Sunshine Coast, Logan, Cairns, Gladstone and Townsville. The affected workers included veterinary, administrative, retail and café staff.

According to the FWO, the underpayments were caused by RSPCA QLD incorrectly applying undertakings and clauses in two of its enterprise agreements. Under those agreements, contracted or actual hours of work were not applied correctly when it came to minimum-hours entitlements, penalty rates, overtime rates and allowances. The underpayments spanned February 2017 to October 2024 — almost seven years.

This was not an FWO raid. After a change in payroll staff prompted an internal review, the charity self-reported its non-compliance to the Fair Work Ombudsman in September 2023. At the time of the announcement, RSPCA QLD had remediated more than $4.13 million — including about $718,000 in interest and about $134,000 in superannuation — to 872 current and former employees. Individual back-payments ranged from less than a dollar to $70,383 (including superannuation and interest), with an average back-payment of $3,943.

An enforceable undertaking (EU) is a written agreement between the Fair Work Ombudsman and an employer (or other party) who has not complied with Australian workplace law. The FWO uses it as an alternative to taking an employer to court over breaches of the Fair Work Act 2009.

The word that matters is "enforceable". An EU is a legally binding, court-enforceable arrangement. The employer must admit liability, express contrition, agree to fix the breaches, and commit to ongoing compliance measures. If the employer fails to do what it promised, the Fair Work Ombudsman can apply to the courts to enforce the terms.

EUs are not soft-touch settlements. They are reserved for serious non-compliance — usually large-scale underpayments — where the FWO decides that securing back-pay and durable compliance is a better outcome than litigation. In RSPCA QLD's case, the undertaking requires the charity to, among other things, commission an independent audit at its own cost to check its compliance with workplace laws and rectify any further breaches it finds. Self-reporting and full cooperation are the usual reason an employer is offered an EU rather than being prosecuted.

It is easy to assume wage underpayment is a problem confined to dodgy operators. It is not. The RSPCA QLD case is a textbook example of how a well-resourced, reputable charity can underpay more than a thousand people for years without realising it.

The cause here was not bad faith — it was complexity. RSPCA QLD pays staff under enterprise agreements rather than directly under a Modern Award, and the breaches came from misapplying clauses governing minimum hours, penalty rates, overtime and allowances. Not-for-profit and community-sector employers are especially exposed to this kind of error because:

• Their workforces are diverse. A single charity might employ vets, retail assistants, café staff, administrators and frontline community workers — each potentially on different classifications, rates and entitlements.
• Many sit under the SCHADS Award or sector enterprise agreements, which carry some of the most intricate provisions in the system — sleepover allowances, broken-shift rules, minimum-engagement periods and 24-hour care arrangements.
• Payroll capacity is often thin. A change in payroll staff is exactly what triggered the RSPCA QLD review — and exactly the kind of moment when an inherited, incorrect interpretation finally gets noticed.

The Fair Work Ombudsman has been explicit that good intentions and charitable status are not a defence. Every employee is entitled to the correct rate for the work they perform, regardless of whether their employer turns a profit.

Underpayment is rarely obvious from a single payslip. The RSPCA QLD errors sat in penalty rates, overtime, minimum-hours entitlements and allowances — the parts of pay that are easiest to get wrong and hardest for an employee to check by eye. Here is a practical way to work out whether you might be affected:

• Confirm what covers you. Are you paid under a Modern Award, an enterprise agreement, or an individual contract? An enterprise agreement must leave you better off overall than the relevant award — so the award is your floor.
• Check your classification. Misclassification at the wrong level is one of the most common causes of underpayment. Your payslip and contract should state your classification.
• Check penalty and overtime rates. Were weekend, public holiday, evening and overtime hours paid at the correct loaded rate? Were minimum-engagement and minimum-hours rules applied?
• Check allowances. Sleepover, broken-shift, laundry, vehicle and first-aid allowances are frequently missed, especially in the community sector.
• Check your super. Superannuation is calculated on ordinary time earnings and is often part of an underpayment claim — about $134,000 of the RSPCA QLD remediation was super.

You can claim back pay for up to 6 years from the date you file a claim under the Fair Work Act 2009 — so it is worth checking sooner rather than later. Our Back Pay Calculator works out the gap between what you were paid and what you should have received, including the super shortfall.

If your numbers don't add up, you have several options, and you do not have to start with a formal dispute.

• Raise it with payroll first. Many underpayments — including RSPCA QLD's — are genuine errors caught by an internal review. Ask in writing for a breakdown of how your pay is calculated.
• Build your own figures. Use the Underpayment Claim Builder to add up shortfalls across multiple pay periods, include pre-judgment interest, and produce a Statement of Claim PDF you can lodge with the Fair Work Ombudsman or the Federal Circuit and Family Court.
• Understand the seriousness. Since 1 January 2025, intentional underpayment can be a criminal offence under the Fair Work Act, alongside state wage-theft laws in Victoria and Queensland. The Wage Theft Calculator estimates both your back-pay and an employer's potential exposure.
• Contact the Fair Work Ombudsman. The FWO investigates underpayment reports confidentially and can be reached on the Fair Work Infoline, 13 13 94.

Keep records — payslips, rosters, timesheets and contracts. The RSPCA QLD remediation shows how much detail it takes to reconstruct years of pay, and your own records make any claim far stronger.

The RSPCA QLD case is a useful prompt for anyone working in the not-for-profit and community sector to check their own pay. The same award and enterprise-agreement complexity that tripped up RSPCA QLD applies across disability, aged care, community services, animal welfare and charity retail.

If you work under the SCHADS Award or a community-sector agreement, two entitlements are worth checking closely because they are so often miscalculated: sleepover shifts and broken shifts. Our SCHADS Sleepover Shift Pay Calculator works out the sleepover allowance plus any disturbed-work overtime you are owed.

Not-for-profit pay also has an upside that many workers in the sector underuse: salary packaging. Public benevolent institutions and health-promotion charities can package living expenses free of fringe benefits tax up to an annual cap, with separate caps for hospitals and for meal entertainment. If you are checking that your gross pay is correct, it is worth also checking you are getting the full tax benefit you are entitled to — the Not-For-Profit Salary Packaging Calculator shows your real take-home benefit.

Underpayment is not a sign that an organisation doesn't value its people. As the RSPCA QLD enforceable undertaking shows, it is far more often a sign that the rules are complicated and the payroll got it wrong. The fix is the same either way: check the figures, and claim what you are owed.