It's been almost 18 months since Pranay Alawala was backpayed 33 thousand dollars after exposing rampant underpayment at the 7/eleven convenience store chain.
He's now working in the fast food industry but can't believe thousands of new migrants and international students are still being exploited every day.
Pranay said to SBS, "I think it's getting worse it's not getting fixed, because we see day by day many industries doing wrong things. Because they are big corporate companies doing the wrong things. It's been happening a long time. So when people speak out we don't have any protection's. We don't know where to go. We approach the media. We get the help from them. We don't get any help from the government."
Maurice Blackburn lawyer Giri Sivaraman has dealt with more than 100 cases in the past year against 7/eleven.
But he says that's just the start.. He currently has cases against Dominos, Pizza Hut, BP.. as well as hospitality, warehousing, and agricultural franchisees.
"Its probably one of the worst cases involves a fast food franchise where an employee had to regularly work many, many, many hours of unpaid overtime. It was accepted, it was common and there was no redress for it. Another really terrible example involves some workers who worked in warehousing who just weren't paid at all," says Sivaraman.
The Fair Work Ombudsman has also commenced legal action against a subway franchisee who owns two outlets in Sydney, after allegedly underpaying a Chinese worker more than $16,000 over a period of 18 months.
The casual worker in her late 20s was paid flat rates of $14 when she was entitled to receive minimum rates of more than $18, plus casual loading and penalty rates.
A Fair Work Amendment Bill - protecting vulnerable workers was tabled in Parliament this year but lawyers believe it's not enough to eliminate wage theft.
Mr Sivaranam explains, "The system is broken. That's how bad the situation is. We have rampant wage theft and it's happening across many different industries. There needs to be a dramatic changing of the rules in the employment laws that are governing this country."
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