A union has won nearly $20,000 extra in entitlements for two early childhood educators who worked for a northern Tasmanian childcare centre which closed.
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United Workers Union spokeswoman Jannette Armstrong, said the low paid educators faced an employer "trying to wriggle out of paying their legal entitlement".
"It's hard to see this as anything other than wage theft," Ms Armstrong said.
"Our members fought back and won against this significant underpayment.
"We will not tolerate employers attempting to ignore their legal obligations to workers."
On top of the original redundancy payment, the union was able to recover $11,118 and $8,221 for the two workers which the union said represented a 50 per cent underpayment of what they were entitled to.
Ms Armstrong said the employer had failed to include all years of service and also failed to include pro-rata long service leave.
"Further wage theft issues were also uncovered by the union (because) neither of the members had received annual leave loading and one of the members had been paid less than the applicable rate under the Children's Services Award 2010," she said.
"It's unacceptable that this employer had been failing to meet their full obligations to the early childhood educators in their employment and then failed to recognise the full service history of the workers.
"These educators had worked in this centre for years and throughout ownership changes, as they continued to educate the young children in the region."
One of the workers who did not want to be named said she had been working for the centre for nearly 10 years when it closed.
"But my bosses said they'd only pay me for the few years that they had owned the centre for, they did not want to recognise all my years of service," she said.
"I went to my union questioning how this could be, when I'd worked there for so long. It's important to know your rights and to not give up.
"Workers in Tasmania need to make sure they get paid out all their redundancy, for all your years of service and long service entitlements.
"People should always go to their union, my union fought for me and knew that I deserved more."