Retail bosses have engaged in a new push to drive down the wages and conditions of some of Australia’s lowest paid workers. The National Retail Association is proposing reducing the retail minimum wage by 10%, scrapping penalty rates for nights and Saturdays, reducing penalty rates on Sundays and cutting the minimum shift to one hour.

Bosses pretend that this assault on workers’ rights is a result of internet shopping and the global financial crisis. The reality is that many retail outlets are still highly profitable and this is being used as an excuse to increase profits.

By Chris Dite, Socialist Party

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UNITE, the fighting union for fast food and retail workers in Victoria, has won several victories over the past few months.

Through their Brunswick Street campaign UNITE has won back pay in a number of stores and forced some bosses to start paying penalty rates for the first time. Their campaign against convenience store giant 7-Eleven has also seen a dodgy employer prosecuted along with an order to pay another $100,000 in back pay to a group of migrant workers.

By Chris Dite, Socialist Party Melbourne

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Thousands of shop workers in Victoria were forced to work on Easter Sunday this year as a result of changes to the law brought in by the Liberal/National State Government.

Previously in Victoria, Good Friday and Easter Sunday were ‘shop closing days’. Easter Saturday and Easter Monday were public holidays that permanent workers had the right to take off at full pay. Many workers took this opportunity to have a four day break from work to see their friends and family or go away.

By Kirk Leonard, Socialist Party

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UNITE’s ‘Respect Workers Rights’ campaign in Melbourne is gathering pace by the day. Among other things, it has been confirmed that the majority of employers on Brunswick Street are undermining many minimum entitlements such as minimum pay rates, penalty rates and superannuation contributions.

This situation can only be described as typical for many young workers in the fast food, retail and hospitality sectors. It also underscores the need for a revival of fighting trade unionism in these industries so that people can organise collectively to demand their minimum entitlements.

By UNITE Organiser, Kirk Leonard

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SP Newsletter No.346

UNITE launched the ‘Respect Workers Rights’ campaign last month focusing on the famous Brunswick Street shopping strip in the inner Melbourne suburb of Fitzroy. The campaign aims to ensure that all workers on the strip are being paid properly and receiving all their legal entitlements.

Young workers in the fast food, retail and hospitality sectors are often paid less than the minimum wage and not afforded penalty rates, casual loadings and superannuation. In many instances they are also faced with unsafe and unhealthy working environments. Many workplaces have never had a health and safety representative elected.

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SP Newsletter No.343

Within the next few weeks UNITE, the union for fast food and retail workers in Victoria will launch a new campaign. The ‘Respect Workers Rights’ campaign will focus on the inner city Melbourne suburb of Fitzroy.

The campaign, which will involve both education on workplace rights and compliance checks for employers, will take place on and around Brunswick Street over the coming months.

UNITE Organiser Mel Gregson explained “We have found that a lot of these cafes and retail stores who employ young people are not paying them properly. Young workers should not have to put up with underpayment or unsafe working conditions. Put simply, we’re fed up with this flagrant disregard for workers rights.”

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Anthony Main is the Secretary of UNITE, the fighting union for fast food and retail workers, based in Australia. Several weeks ago he spoke to labour movement activists based in Hong Kong. The transcript below was originally published on chinaworker.info.

With a decision imminent about Hong Kong’s minimum wage level, and thousands of young workers trapped in low paid jobs in the fast food and convenience store sector, chinaworker spoke to Anthony about the work his union does organising young workers, to see what lessons can be learned for unions and youth in Hong Kong.

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More than 30 people attended a protest outside a South Yarra 7-Eleven store on September 18. The action was organised by UNITE, the union campaigning against the underpayment of wages in 7-Eleven stores.

By UNITE reporters, Melbourne

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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.

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On Friday February 13 more than 100 people attended a rally outside the 7-Eleven store in the heart of Geelong. The protest called for 7-Eleven to start paying its workers the legal minimum wage and for all unpaid wages to be paid back to them. The rally was also demanding that one of the workers, who was sacked for making a complaint, be reinstated.

Kirk Leonard reports from Geelong

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