Discussion
Discuss about the Advanced Studies in Industrial Relations.
Industrial Relations can be referred to the multi disciplinary field which studies about relationship of employment. It can also be called as employee relations because of the importance of non industrial employment relationships. This is often seen as synonymous to Human Resource Management trend. Employee relations deals with the non unionized workers, on the other hand, labor relations deals with the unionized workers. Industrial Relations deals with the studying and examining various situations of employment, not only the unionized workforce but also the non-unionized workforce (Ackers, 2014).
The report throws light on the issues related to the employment of visa holders in Australia, especially student and S457 visa holders. There are some rights of S457 visa holders in the Australian system which helps in preventing workplace exploitation. Moreover, the student visa holders have the right to receive accurate and current information regarding the courses, requirements, structure of the fees and others (Bechter, Brandl & Meardi, 2012).
The report highlights the points related to the 7 Eleven inquiry and why it is done along with some major finding. It also discusses about the gaps in the Australian ER system and the role of state and unions. Further it discusses about the implications of the inquiry for the regulation ER in Australia along with the workers’ rights and duties along with a brief idea regarding the current scenario of workers’ visa in Australia.
For preventing exploitation at the workplace, there are various rights of workplace in Australia. The racial discrimination act protects all the workers on basis of race, sex, color, gender, descent and others along with the prohibition of workplace bullying. The act against sex discrimination provides protection to the workers from sexual harassment. The disability discrimination act provides protection to the workers from harassments regarding their disability. The act against discrimination of age prohibits child labor and under age employees (Bissett & Landau, 2012). Irrespective of their caste, religion, sexual preference, origin and others, women must have equal opportunities and rights at the workplace. They must receive extra payments, if they serve the company for more hours. Moreover, there should be no gender biasness, women and men workers must be equally paid based on their work and experience. If any worker is unwell, he/she has the right to take leave. Female workers can take maternity leave when required (Candy, 2015).
7-Eleven Inquiry
On June 2014, Fair Work Ombudsman, often abbreviated as FWO, conducted an Inquiry to the allegations which the Australia’s leading franchisee retailer, 7-Eleven Australia Private Limited was facing. The allegations were mostly regarding significant under payment of the wages and forgery of the employment records which occurred at that point of time. The inquiry was held to keep a track record of all these allegations which was strictly coordinated with inspections of site and keeping an analysis of the subsequent record. It was conducted on a sample size of twenty 7-Eleven stores (Cully, 2012). The Inquiry contained some in-depth investigations of the 7-Eleven stores with the employees’ assistance. The investigations were disclosed after concerning the non compliance levels with Fair Work Regulations 2009 and Fair Work Act 2009. This included instances regarding the deliberate manipulations of track records in order to hide the fact of underpayment of the wages. Moreover, for identifying and addressing the drivers regarding non compliance, the Inquiry started examining the actions of the workplace participants and considered ways to motivate them (Denny & Churchill, 2016).
The Inquiry helped in understanding better the required role of 7-Eleven, its employees’ operational procedures and also regarding its franchisees. It helped in determining the fact that whether the 7-Eleven store had any role in forgery of the employment records and under payment of wages. It helped in finding the workplace matters approach of the 7-Eleven stores (Dudley et al., 2012). It seemingly promoted compliance, but did not however promote non compliance and compounded it. There were instances where the franchisees made misleading and false records in order to satisfy the payroll and auditing regime of the 7-Eleven stores, while they continued to pay less to the employees. Investigations were held which took samples of twenty stores of 7-Eleven and actions were undertaken in accordance with that. Seven matters were filed before Federal Circuit Court and infringement notices were sent, recovering over 293,500 dollars for the workers (Fraser, 2016).
The investigation report examined the whole operating environment of the stores along with their behavior. Moreover, the investigation report brought in issues related to rates of penalty not being paid correctly and also non-payment of wages to the employees on public holidays. Furthermore, it had issues related to instances of employees not receiving payments for working overtime and payment slips did not contain the required details. It had a severe effect on the employees and huge money was recovered from this (Hardy, 2016). The 7-Eleven stores comprised huge number of international student workers who belonged to the Non-English speakers’ background. International student visas gave allowance of forty hour’s per fortnight to work. Young employees, especially international ones, were facing severe exploitation and non-payment of nightshift works. Moreover, the training periods were unpaid which gave rise to the exploitation of international student workers. In addition to that the investigation report shows that almost all the workers did not receive market rate salary, which is their basic right (Irving, 2013).
Gaps in the Australian ER system
Considerable changes at the workforce and the legislation of Industrial Relations resulted in the gaps between the systems of representation and regulations of Industrial Relations. Out of twenty 7-Eleven stores, seven of them were subjected to complete investigation. Few number of those investigations were challenging for the Fair Work Inspectors. There were several instances of the suspects who were providing some conflicting information, many changed the account details and few relied on the records which were later found inaccurate (O’Brien & Boersma, 2016). When the inspectors found out that the employer was not paying correct amount of wages to the employees, their challenge was to discover the amount of money the company owed to its workers. To report this by legal proceedings, the investigators had to establish the amount of underpayment in front of the judicial court, which posed to be a challenge in front of them. The inspectors precisely established the shift timings each and every employee was working and the amount they were paid. This gave false and inaccurate statements of payment slips for which forensic work needed to be carried out (Poole, 2013).
The work was actually labor intensive which involved careful analysis and comparison of evidences, carefully viewing the CCTV footages and recording the interviews of the employees and other workers or witnesses if any. Most of the stores contained inaccurate records of underpayments. The gaps in the Australian ER system that this inquiry raises in regard to the role of the state and the role of unions are analyzed here. At times, the foreign workers are not even paid the salary which is of market rate (Rainnie, 2016). Moreover they don’t have the Insurance coverage. The existing working visa class for the international workers has been changed into a new one consisting of new rules, which gradually reduced the list of occupations. There are several limitations of the new visa for working, which is two years. Four years visa demands a quality standard of English speaking ability among the workers. Furthermore, payments will be deducted from the workers’ salary amount for their benefits (Reilly, 2013).
Income rate of the humanitarian immigrants and family visa holders is comparatively less than others for which the impact of fiscal policy is negative among those visa classes. They have no accessibility of payments regarding social welfare as well as settlement services (Robertson, 2012). Moreover, there are several rights of student visa holders which are discussed here. Firstly, they have the freedom of speech and expression. They have the right to receive accurate and genuine information related to the courses, fees structure and requirements. The provider must give correct information to the international students before their enrollment. Working students have work permit but that is limited to some hours. The 7-Eleven stores exploited young international workers and paid them less amount of wages (Robertson, 2014).
All workers, including the foreign ones have the basic rights and protections at the workplace, which needs to be adhered or followed. These workplace laws are for both the foreign and residential workers. They can ask for flexible timing arrangements during work. They have the right to take leaves on public holidays or long service, annual, personal, parental, community service and others (Robertson, 2016). They should be notified before termination and must be protected against workplace bullying. Moreover, they must be paid extra for serving overtime or working for extra hours. All the employees, be it foreign or residential, must receive the accurate payment or some rewards, which includes trainings and meetings, most importantly, they must be paid with the market salary rates. They have the right to get protection against workplace discrimination on the basis of race, sex, color, sexual orientation, marital status, disabilities, origin or diversity and other factors (Shields et al., 2015).
Workplace laws of Australia impose huge responsibility for the employee entitlements over employers. In the case of 7-Eleven inquiry, an individual who is outside employment relationship, that is franchisor and others, does not have any direct and legal responsibility in respect to the other employees (Sivaraman & Turner, 2016). The Inquiry helped in demonstrating the fact that 7-Eleven has exercised influence as well as a high level of control on its franchisees, taking several aspects of operations into consideration. The stores of 7-Eleven regularly reviewed its network, payroll and also provided accessibility to training to the employees and support to the franchisees. Moreover, it maintained the stores’ profit and loss statements and also detailed information regarding their payroll as well as business expenditure (Terry-Armstrong, 2016).
The workplace right of S457 visa holders in the Australian Industrial Relations system contains the many points. For prevention of workplace exploitation, the country has some specific rights for its workers. Firstly, the act against racial discrimination protects workers on the basis of race, origin, color, descent and others. Secondly, the act against sex discrimination protects workers from any kind of sexual harassments. Thirdly, the disability discrimination act provides protection to the workers on the basis of their disability (Tham & Campbell, 2012). Fourthly, the age discrimination act provides protection against underage workers. Fifthly, irrespective of their religion, caste, gender, sex, sexual preference, origin and others, all the workers should have equal opportunities and rights. There should be no exploitation and workplace bullying. Lastly, workers needs to be paid extra if they serve the organization for more hours which includes receiving equal payments irrespective of the workers’ caste, sex, religion and others. Moreover, workers must be allowed to take leaves if he/she is unwell including female workers’ maternity leave allowance (Ackers, 2014).
The Fair Work Act has a set of laws that is legal rights and regulations to promote a fair relationship between the employee and the employer. It promotes a safer workplace for the employees to work in. They have the basic workplace protection and rights. Moreover, these laws are applicable for both the international as well as the residential workers (Bissett & Landau, 2012). Furthermore, to maintain records and ensure the working hours of the employees, the stores must implement several measures. Firstly, the biometrics time recording system helps in identifying which employee is working for how many hours. It helps in monitoring the records and maintaining the actual records of the employees. It keeps a track record of the employees’ working hours, which include the login and logout time. Secondly, weekly rosters should be provided at the stores to maintain the record of its employees’ (Denny & Churchill, 2016).
Thirdly, photographic identification must be maintained of all the employees in order to maintain a security of the stores. Fourthly, the CCTV systems must be in good condition and operate all the time. They must have the capacity to record and store all the footages. Franchisees should not have the accessibility to the footages or its storage as they may alter or cause changes to the recordings (O’Brien & Boersma, 2016). Lastly, it needs to be ensured that all the electronic systems are in good condition and operational. If the electronics are not in good condition they must be send for maintenance. Other processes like self auditing, employee hotline, rectifying underpayment cases, Franchisees’ wage costs, and employee and franchisee engagement must be maintained on a daily basis (Tham & Campbell, 2012).
Conclusion
To conclude, the existing working visa for the international workers has been changed which include some new set of rules, leading in to the reduction of the list of occupations. Moreover, the limitation of the new visa for the working class is of two years. Four years long visa requires the workers to have a quality standard of English speaking ability. However, the new working visa deducts money from the workers’ salary for their benefits. The humanitarian visa holders and family immigrants’ income has become comparatively lesser than others. The 7-Eleven stores must establish a guaranteed reserve fund that should be maintained by the store manager in order to cover payments of the store employees or workers. This will help in identifying underpayment issues and help them rectify those.
Furthermore, in order to maintain records of the employees, the stores must undertake certain measures like, biometrics time recording system helps in identifying which employee is working for how many hours, weekly rosters should be provided at the stores to maintain the record of its employees’ and photographic identification must be maintained of all the employees in order to maintain a security of the stores. The CCTV systems must be in good condition and operate all the time and it needs to be ensured that all the electronic systems are in good condition and operational.
References
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Bissett, M., & Landau, I. (2012). Australia’s 457 Visa Scheme: And the Rights of Migrant Workers. Alternative Law Journal, 33(3), 142-146.
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