7-Eleven under fire in Australia for worker exploitation
posted on 31st August 2015
A review of 225 franchised 7-Eleven stores in Australia has found 69 percent of them had payroll compliance issues, including falsification of records and rosters, wage fraud and pay rates of half the award rate. There are also allegations of blackmail, withholding passports and driver licences from immigrant workers.
The internal review by the Australian master franchisee has been publicised in a joint investigation by the Four Corners TV programme and Fairfax Media. Extracts published show that the franchisor had been aware of issues for at least the last 12 months, and that it had been taking steps to make franchisees aware of their obligations and change their practices. It is not clear how the media got hold of the report, which is certain to cause considerable damage to the brand and franchisee's businesses.
Meanwhile, a franchisee told the 7-Eleven field investigator that some staff members hadn't been paid for six weeks because they "don't care if they haven't been paid correctly as money isn't important to them".
The Melbourne-based franchisee was caught paying A$12 ($13.30) an hour to staff – well below the award rate of A$24 an hour – and was withholding the passport and driver's licence of a staff member.
The offences were handled internally.
"They constitute a breach of the 7-Eleven Agreement" and "the expectation is that you will remedy the breach by doing the following: 1. Return the passport and driver's licence. 2. Pay monies owed to your employees through the 7-Eleven payroll system so we can verify that the breach has been completely remedied."
They are just a handful of the more than 2000 extracts of on-the-record interviews conducted by field inspectors and placed on a central database at head office, obtained by Four Corners and Fairfax Media's Business Day.
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