An investigation by the Fair Work Ombudsman into the operation of Caltex stores across Australia has found several are breaching workplace laws. The Ombudsman has found evidence of underpayment at a number of the petrol station's franchises, with migrant workers among those most affected.
Caltex came to the attention of Australia's workplace monitor back in 2016 over its workplace practices.
Fair Work Ombudsman Natalie James says the organisation received a tip-off that a number of the outlets were exploiting their staff.
"We were receiving intelligence about some practices that were of concern to us, practices including cash payments and underpayment of workers, and that is what made us decide that we'd better take a very close look at what was going on in the Caltex network."
Inspectors from the Fair Work Ombudsman visited a total of 25 sites operated by 23 Caltex franchisees in Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide.
Just six of those stores were found to have met workplace-law standards, meaning a noncompliance rate of 76 per cent.
Underpayment and failure to award overtime and penalty rates were among the breaches uncovered.
But most worrying, the Ombudsman says, was the lack of record-keeping.
"The most concerning of the issues we found were cases where the records were deficient. When employee records are deficient, we have no real way of knowing what workers are entitled to and whether they received it."
The investigation found most of those affected were young and migrant workers.
Three in five of the nearly 200 employees for whom the Fair Work Ombudsman obtained records were visa holders, while one in four was under age 24.
The chief executive of the refugee and migrant support service AMES Australia, Catherine Scarf, says migrants are often vulnerable to workplace exploitation.
"Often, migrant workers, international students, backpackers, holiday-makers, those kind of visas, haven't had the opportunity to understand Australia workplace culture, law, so they'll often come into a workplace straight from visa-granting without that background information and may have very different workplace, legal, structures than we're used to and so may not know what to expect, what their workplace rights are. And so, obviously, that's when issues can arise."
With 1,900 stores across Australia, Caltex insists only a small proportion are in breach of workplace laws.
In a statement provided to SBS, the company said, in 2016, it set up its own audit process and a whistleblower hotline for affected employees.
Last week, Caltex announced it was moving all of its franchise stores to company operation by 2020.
Natalie James links the high rates of noncompliance to the fact most franchise operators it investigated were from non-English speaking backgrounds.
"New arrivals to Australia, when they set up a business, might not be familiar with our laws. Our laws are very complex, and you need to go fairwork.gov.au and make sure you understand the award rates."
Ms Scarf says, like migrant employees, franchise operators also could benefit from resources in the area of workplace rights.
"I think, as well as training for migrant workers in terms of understanding their rights, it would be very useful to ensure that franchisees have training in terms of understanding their obligations and making sure that they understand Australian workplace law and are supported by their franchisors in terms of what that needs to be."
