SP Newsletter No.280
UNITE’s year long campaign against convenience store giant 7-Eleven is literally starting to pay off! $112,000 in unpaid wages has been recovered for 7-Eleven workers in Melbourne and a further $55,000 has been recovered in Sydney.

For years 7-Eleven has been involved in the widespread underpayment of wages. Most 7-Eleven workers are international students and some have reported being paid as little as $5 an hour! In some cases workers have been forced to work for weeks with no pay at all while others have had to act as store security with no training.

Part of UNITE’s campaign has been to pressure the Fair Work Ombudsman to force 7-Eleven to comply with the law. In July the Ombudsman announced that they were forcing five 7-Eleven stores in the Melbourne CBD to back pay 88 workers and a sixth store was made to credit 12 workers with 1000 hours of lost annual leave.

The underpayments found at the Melbourne stores were $32,134 for 18 workers, $27,053 for 25 workers, $24,987 for 25 workers, $23,671 for 16 workers and $3,615 for four workers. Fifteen stores in Sydney have also had to reimburse 80 workers thanks to UNITE’s campaign.

Currently UNITE is pursuing more back pay for a group of 7-Eleven workers in Geelong. 7-Eleven franchisee Eddie Chan was ordered by the Fair Work Ombudsman to back pay the workers in early August. He failed to meet this deadline and the Ombudsman is now taking the matter to court. UNITE is calling for Chan to be prosecuted. (see more below)

A key underlying theme in these disputes is the fact that all of the workers are international students. Young people are being exploited at work everyday but international students face further difficulties. International students do not have full work rights and are only allowed to work 20 hours a week. Often they are forced to work more than 20 hours in order to make ends meet. This allows bosses to threaten them with deportation unless they agree to work long shifts without breaks for very low wages.

UNITE has warned that this is not the end of the campaign. Thousands more 7-Eleven workers are still being ripped off and are subject to terrible conditions. The hope is that this initial victory will encourage more workers to speak up. Much more could be won if 7-Eleven workers were better organised.

If you work in fast food or retail in Victoria you should join UNITE. They are the only union fighting for the rights of young people and international students at work. If workers stand together against low pay, long hours and exploitation victories can be won.

Protest against 7-Eleven this Friday in South Yarra

On Friday September 18 between 5-6pm UNITE will stage an action outside the 7-Eleven store at 187 Domain Rd, South Yarra. The store is located on the corner of Park St, opposite the Botanical Gardens.

The South Yarra store is part owned by Eddie Chan. Until recently Chan also owned the Moorabool St store in Geelong where he paid his workers only half of the wages they were owed! UNITE estimates that these Geelong workers are owed more than $100,000. Chan is refusing to pay up despite being ordered to by the Fair Work Ombudsman.

UNITE is demanding that Chan pay these workers the money that is owed to them. We are also calling upon the Fair Work Ombudsman to prosecute Chan for serious breaches of the law.

7-Eleven head office would like to wash their hands of these problems, yet continue to maintain a relationship with dodgy operators like Eddie Chan. Similar scams are happening in many other 7-Eleven stores across the country.

We call on our supporters to attend this action and say NO to the 7-Eleven rip-off!
For more information call Mel on 0400588202 or visit http://www.unite.org.au

Upcoming SP meetings

The Melbourne Branch of the Socialist Party meets every Wednesday 7pm at Trades Hall on the corner of Lygon & Victoria Streets Carlton South. Upcoming meetings include:

23/9/09 – The role of socialists in the trade unions
7/10/09 – The 1905 Russian Revolution – Lessons for today
14/10/09 – Capitalism, women and the family

For more information or for details of meetings in other parts of Australia contact our National Office on 03 9639 9111.

SP National Conference public event – The crisis facing world capitalism

The Socialist Party will be holding its National Conference on October 2/3 at Trades Hall in Melbourne. At 7pm on Friday October 2 we will host a public meeting titled ‘The crisis facing world capitalism’.

The meeting will discuss the economic crisis and the effects it is having across the world. It will also outline a way forward to ensure that workers and young people are not forced to pay for a crisis they didn’t create. We encourage all of our supporters to come along and contribute to this important discussion.

News links:

Italy: Interview with leader of Metal Mechanics union
http://socialistworld.net/eng/2009/09/1501.html

Chile: ‘Latin America’s 9/11′
http://socialistworld.net/eng/2009/09/1101.html

US: 25 million unemployed…
http://socialistworld.net/eng/2009/09/1001.html

Join the Socialist Party

If you agree with what you have read in our newsletter or on our website you should consider joining SP. The Socialist Party has branches in Melbourne, Sydney, Newcastle and Perth as well as members and supporters in all other states.

We are involved in trade union work and student work. We also run community, anti-war and environmental campaigns. But most of all we want to build a party that will fight to get rid of the capitalist system, the system that is at the root of all of these problems. We fight for socialism - a system that will bring an end to wars, poverty and environmental destruction. To join SP contact our National Office on 03 9639 9111 and we will send you a membership application form.

Subscribe to ‘The Socialist’ newspaper!

Support the Socialist Party by subscribing to our monthly newspaper ‘The Socialist’. Subscription rates are only $10 per year or $20 solidarity price. You will receive 11 copies per year delivered to your door every month. You will also receive our email newsletter every week and you will know that you are supporting an organisation that is at the fore of fighting against the capitalist system. To subscribe to ‘The Socialist’ contact our National Office on 03 9639 9111 and we will send you a subscription form.

Socialist Party contact details

Melbourne: Phone Anthony on 0396399111.
Sydney: Phone Gary on 0297287727.
Newcastle: Phone Samantha on 0249681545.
Perth: Phone John on 0894020728.
Rest of Australia: Phone our National Office on 0396399111.
Rest of the world: Phone our International Office on ++ 44 20 8988 8760.

The Socialist Party is the Australian section of the Committee for a Workers’ International (CWI). The CWI is organised in over 40 countries across the world.

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