500 signatures reached
To: Ross Worth, general manager Hog's Breath Cafe Australia
Hog's breath Cafe: stop using workchoices to underpay your workers!
Current enterprise agreements for many of the Hog's Breath Cafes around Australia are relics of the Howard government's “WorkChoices” laws from 2006, which allowed employers to strip basic entitlements – such as penalty rates for night and weekend work, minimum shift times and much more.
This is a major loophole that allows employers to get away with essentially underpaying their workers in a way that is technically legal. This is manipulative and unfair, and needs to end.
We the undersigned, demand that Hogs Breath Café Australia end its exploitation of workers covered by such agreements, and demand an end to the use of WorkChoices era agreements to deny employees basic minimum conditions.
Why is this important?
In February, staff at Hog's Breath Cafe Kelmscott applied to the Fair Work Commission to terminate their 2007 agreement, which puts us in a position where we are worse off than what we would be under the award. Under this agreement, we are denied penalty rates, and are on average $59 worse off each week as a result. In addition to this we can be sent home from a shift after one hour of paid work, we do not get paid extra for working overtime and have to pay for our uniforms.
For many of us, $59 a week can be the difference between whether or not we can afford textbooks for uni, can pay the week's rent and bills and sometimes whether or not we can get by without skipping meals or running out of petrol. Being sent home after an hour of work can mean it cost you more to get to work than the amount you get paid for that hour.
We've since found out that a number of Hog's Breath Cafe franchisees have tried to get away with the same thing, and have retained dodgy, unfair agreements that were pushed through when the Howard government's anti- worker WorkChoices laws were still in place. WorkChoices was meant to be abolished after Labor won the 2007 election, however these antiquated laws are still dictating the wages and conditions of many workers in Hog’s Breath Cafes around the country.
Hogs Breath Café workers deserve better than this. We deserve the at the very least the basic legal minimums set out under the Award, and staff should be compensated for having to miss out on important time with family and friends when they work weekends.