Franchise giant Subway is the latest fast-food chain in Fair Work Ombudsman's firing line after being caught underpaying its employees.
An FWO probe into 22 franchisees across Victoria, Queensland and New South Wales has led to the recovery of $81,638 in unpaid wages for 167 current and former employees.
And 18 of these outlets were found to be in breach of Australian workplace laws by failing to pay minimum wages, not paying holiday and overtime rates and failing to issue proper payslips and maintaining employment records. The probe was initiated after it received anonymous employee tip-offs about potential breaches.
Fair Work Ombudsman Source: Fair Work Ombudsman
She added that at least half of the underpaid employees were young workers or migrants, making them particularly vulnerable to this kind of exploitation.
“For many of these workers, it might be their first job and they could be unaware of their workplace rights or scared to raise issues with their boss,” said Ms Parker.
The watchdog has issued seven compliance notices to the franchises that require them to rectify the breaches, nine formal cautions about future non-compliance and nine on-the-spot fines for record keeping and payslip breaches totalling $5,880.
This comes after a Subway outlet in Sydney was fined $65,438, earlier this year for underpaying its worker.
Subway Gift Card, 1/2015 (CC BY) Source: by Mike Mozart of TheToyChannel and JeepersMedia on YouTube
Ms Parker added that a franchise network can be held legally accountable if its stores are not following the workplace regulations.
“The community expects head companies to assure themselves that all the stores in their franchise network are paying workers their correct wages and entitlements.”
Overall, the FWO has calculated that they have recovered nearly $150,000 in underpaid wages over the past two years.
The FWO has encouraged workers with concerns to come forward.
Meanwhile, according to an ABC News report, Subway has said in a written statement that, "Like the Fair Work Ombudsman, Subway is extremely concerned with wage underpayment and does not tolerate deliberate wage theft."
The franchisor added that it has 1355 franchises, all of which are required to comply with Australia's workplace laws, but are also required to meet Subway's internal standards of operation.
