Tony Sheldon (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I speak to the government's response to the Economics References Committee report Systemic, sustained andshameful: unlawful underpayment of employees' remuneration. Quite clearly we've seen the weaponisation of anti-union behaviour. One of the consequences that we've seen is the underpayments that are happening right across a whole series of companies in various markets around the world. In this country we've seen it happen in certain places, like in McDonald's—and there's $250 million worth of wage theft presently before the courts. These are some of the introductory jobs in the retail sector. You'd think as a parent—and I'm a parent of two great kids—that, when kids go to work for McDonald's, there's some sense of responsibility. It is a large employer. Tens of thousands of people are employed across the McDonald's franchise and in direct employment through their business model. We trust those tens of thousands of people to look after our children and to give them their first opportunity to experience working in a work environment and being paid for their endeavours. It's a first opportunity for them to be skilled for future opportunities.

What have they actually been skilled for? Some union-busting strategies at McDonald's actually went to a $250 million underpayment. McDonald's have been saying that people can't take their breaks. In fact, having a 10-minute break after doing a long shift on your feet at McDonald's is important. Those who have worked in the hospitality environment know that five hours is a pretty damn long time to be standing behind a counter—in my case it was behind bars serving customers—without a break. These McDonald's workers worked for a number of franchisees—and one in particular—who allegedly have been involved in union busting because they didn't want those workers to stand up for their rights, for what they were entitled to.

This is one of the reasons why we have so much wage theft in this country. It's not a cottage industry; it is actually a business decision about how they operate their business—either they don't invest enough in making sure that there are proper checks and balances or they stop investing and leave it to the algorithms of the technology to look after it rather than exercise the social and corporate responsibility they have to make sure that people are appropriately paid. They outsource it to somewhere where they don't have to take responsibility, just as McDonald's and their franchisees have done.

Heather, a supervisor for a McDonald's in Murray Bridge, South Australia, recently settled a case after an illegal five-year union-busting campaign by that particular large franchisee, which owned many businesses, had many hundreds of workers and ultimately has thousands of workers going through their business. Heather said to the Australian Financial Review:

I was pressured into resigning my union membership—they made me frightened I would lose my position as a supervisor.

Then, after I gave in to the pressure to give up my SDA membership, my hours were slashed because I raised a workplace safety concern.

In case after case when people raised concerns and issues, particularly with this particular franchisee of McDonald's, they were actually intimidated, set upon and targeted. The consequences of not being able to get the appropriate pay and the appropriate breaks were all part of the safety issues. Those underpayment issues and those wage-busting issues tend to take place in these companies. What they don't understand on the other side is that our community, our kids, our next-door neighbours and sometimes, heaven forbid, even our parents and extended family are union members, and they're union members so they can be active and make sure that they have a voice at work. A voice at work is about making sure you get appropriate payments and appropriate wages and being able to say to your employer, 'This is not right.' Sometimes it's not right. Sometimes you have to be able to make sure there's a system that backs you up. But, of course, when it was under their watch, those on the opposite side did nothing about wage theft.