One in four Australian workers who checked their pay through a union-run online wage calculator found out they were being ripped off, with staff in the restaurant business the worst affected.
Based on nearly 20,000 workers' pay details entered into the Fair Pay Campaign Calculator over three weeks, more than half of all restaurant industry submissions (60 per cent) showed staff were being denied minimum rates of pay.
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Caltex wage fraud: the system is broken
First it was 7-Eleven. Now, petrol station chain Caltex is under the spotlight for rampant wage fraud throughout its franchise network, as Fairfax's Adele Ferguson explains.
The calculator – launched by the National Union of Workers, the Meatworkers' Union and United Voice – compares pay rates to the federal minimum wage scale and awards in eight different industries.
Out of the total 19,756 submissions entered from October 17 to November 6, there were 5006 (25 per cent) that reflected an underpayment.
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"It's horrifying," said Maurice Blackburn employment principal Giri Sivaraman.Â
"It's horrifying to think that so many people across a wide variety of industries are getting underpaid.
"This isn't a case of a few bad apples – you can't isolate it to one type of job, one industry, or one employer – this is systemic wage theft, and it's just so widespread."
Another troubling result from the data related to employment in Australia's pubs and clubs, where nearly 92 per cent of casual staff who used the calculator to check their wages found out they were being underpaid.
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The results do not reflect overall underpayment across the economy or certain industries, because workers who were worried about being exploited were more likely to use the calculator, and were more likely to discover underpayment.
There has been mounting concern about exploitation and underpayment in Australian workplaces, following a number of high-profile scandals that have gained national attention, such as abuses of temporary foreign workers in supermarket supply chains, and the saga engulfing convenience store chain 7-Eleven.
Mr Sivaraman, who has been acting pro-bono for underpaid workers from the 7-Eleven wages scandal, said violations of labour laws appeared to be prominent in franchise networks, and it was time head offices were held to account.
"There is a real problem because franchisors, head office, don't have enough skin in the game ... they can simply turn a blind eye to wage theft by their franchisees and not be liable in any way for what's happening," he said.
"I think the laws need to change so that franchisors are directly liable for contraventions by franchisees."
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