A former 7-Eleven employee from Geelong in Victoria has claimed that he was forced to repay part of his wages to his employer in order to keep his job.
The person, whose identity was kept under wrap, met federal employment minister Michaelia Cash and former head of the 7-Eleven investigation panel, Allan Fels in Geelong on Thursday.
In this meeting, the former 7-Eleven worker pointed out how his employer paid him just above the minimum wage and then forced him to hand back about a quarter of it as a condition to keep him employed.
He also told Minister Cash and Mr Fels that he worked for almost a month without being paid as part of his training. “Once they started paying me, I was paid at a below minimum wage of $14/hour but after the expose, they increased it to $19/hour. However, I was forced to return a portion of my wage back in cash,” he told them.
The investigation panel which was sacked earlier this month pointed out that how several franchises of 7-Eleven who showed that they had paid their employees minimum wage, were forcing a cash-back to appear clear in the books.
Recently, the federal government had proposed ten-fold increase in penalties to curb such work place exploitation and also appoint Prof Fels as the head of the new migrant worker taskforce to be set up within Fair Work Ombudsman to deal with such cases.
