More protests planned if 7-Eleven doesn’t talk!  

Over 50 people attended UNITE’s first action against 7-Eleven in the Melbourne CBD today. The theme of the protest was 7-Eleven: Low pay - 24 hours a day! Over 3000 UNITE leaflets were handed out to customers in less than an hour!

The leaflets explained the greed of 7-Eleven who boast about their massive profit margins while at the same time underpaying their staff. UNITE is currently campaigning to organise 7-Eleven workers. Many of these workers are international students and some get paid as little as $9 per hour.

Anthony Main from UNITE told the crowd that hundreds of thousands of dollars in unpaid wages had been stolen from 7-Eleven workers over many years. “The only thing you can call it is the theft of workers wages on a grand scale” he said.

Liz Thompson, who has helped organise taxi drivers, and RMIT International Student Rep, Ganesh spoke about the situation facing international students. Not only are international students ripped off at work but they are also exploited by the universities and by landlords.

UNITE was joined at the action by members of the Communication Workers Union (CWU), National Union of Workers (NUW), Australian Services Union (ASU), Union Solidarity and students from both RMIT and Melbourne University.

Anthony reported at the rally that already the work of UNITE is having some effect. He said that in a few 7-Eleven outlets the workers have now been ‘put on the books’ and employed on a permanent part time basis. They have had their wages increased from around $9 per hour to $16. A pay rise of 55 per cent!

But Anthony said that while this is an improvement, it is not enough. “We want to make sure these workers are getting everything they are entitled to under the Award, including penalty rates, breaks and pro rata holidays and sick pay.”

“We call on 7-Eleven head office to meet with us as a matter of urgency. We want a firm commitment from them that they are going to put in place a system where by every single franchisee is sticking to the law.”

“If this doesn’t occur we will have no option but to escalate the action.” Anthony said.

This entry was posted on Friday, September 5th, 2008 at 2:58 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.