The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald today has the first part of a joint Fairfax / ABC investigative report on underpaid workers working at 7-eleven outlets. Newsagents ought to read this, especially those newsagents who pay cash in hand and short pay on the hourly rate and other conditions.
Newsagents who do employ and pay lawfully should read the report and be encouraged that their good behaviour shows them as better citizens that the employers reflected in this report.
If you compete with 7-Eleven, grab the paper, cut out the story and put it on display in your statement with a statement that as an employer you happily pay your employees the award wage and their full entitlements. Thank your customers for their support.
If you compete with 7-Eleven talk about this story on your business Facebook page and on Twitter.
This is why the government needs to defund the ABC now. It should revert to its core business of entertaining pre schoolers and running government propaganda a la Blue Hills.
These 7/11 owners are hard working immigrants who have brought their cash and their entrepreneurial skills to Australia. They gave up everything they had at home, they have risked all their capital and yet the ABC to chooses to under mine their businesses on what is simply a technical matter over rosters and time sheets.
This is not the first time the ABC has targeted companies for the crime of getting people off the dole and in to work. They did a hatchet job last May on Four Corners as well.
Their staff should be grateful they have a job at all. If they don’t like the wages, they can go and work at Grill’d!
David I can;t tell if your comment is a joke.
This is exactly the type of report the ABC should do as most news outlets would not do it for fear of it hurting advertising.
7-Eleven and their franchisees need to comply with the law. According to the report it appears they have not been doing this and thereby achieving a competitive advantage against newsagents and other competitors. Good on the ABC and Fairfax for their work on this. More please.
Personally, I love the ABC and SBS for that matter. Four Corners, Media Watch, Q & A, Insight, 7.30 report,not to mention all the fabulous documentaries. I don’t always agree with the politics, but I keep an open mind and we need these programs to “keep the bastards honest” like never before. As far as 7/11 and Grill’d are concerned, simply pay your workers award wages like everyone else, that’s the law!
More fool 7-Eleven. If they want to pay under award wages they first have to sign their employees up to a complicit union. Then they could negotiate below award wages in exchange for a kickback safe in the knowledge the Labor party will fight tooth and nail to shut down any inquiry into their actions.
Guess I need to work a bit harder on my sarcasm. :-). I thought the reference to Grill’d might have made that clear.
I agree, these are the stories we need and it is ONLY the ABC that brings them. Never see anything like this on commercial TV, which is why Rupert’s Government hates the ABC.
Some years ago I was in Court, supporting a friend. The case before hers was of a teenage convenience store employee charged with theft as an employee. He stole merchandise and on sold it as his wages hadn’t been paid for 2 weeks. There should have been two people in the dock that day, not one.
Every employer who underpays is a thief, and should be treated as one. They steal the employees’ labour. They steal from the community by underpaying PAYE. They steal from their competitor’s by being able to unfairly under cut prices.
I had an employee just this year leave me here in WA because he wanted to study in Sydney. He asked for a reference so he could find a job in a newsagents. Less than 3 months over there he came back to WA citing unable to find a job and the ones he could find all wanted to pay him cash and below the minimum wage. I was happy to welcome him back but was also good him and the other staff realized a bit more how well I treat them 🙂
There are other chains in the Petrol market where the business model is to contract to 1 person (the site) who then runs with family in theory outside labour law as it is family.