Burger King Workers To Strike
Burger King union members across the country are starting strike action tomorrow (Friday 15th June) over pay, hours and health and safety at the fast food chain.
Unite Union National Secretary and lead negotiator Gerard Hehir says the members have had enough, with over 92% voting to take strike action.
“They are sick of having some of the lowest pay rates amongst major fast food companies, sick of working unpaid hours, sick of not getting their breaks and sick of Burger King not sticking to agreements.”
“We were disgusted to find salaried managers, who supervise staff and manage stores on their own, sometimes working for less than the minimum wage. They are routinely expected to not take breaks and to work extra hours without pay or time off. When your hourly rate is just $16.88 - only 34 cents above the minimum wage, you only have to work around one hour unpaid a week to go below the minimum wage.”
Because of these issues Unite has included BK salaried managers in negotiations for the first time and has a case before the Employment Authority for a former salaried manager who ended up in just that situation. Unite has been asking for weeks for clock-in/out time records for all salaried members. Burger King has refused to provide them, denying they exist despite having supplied such information on an individual basis previously.
“This confirms our fears that minimum wage breaches amongst managers has been widespread. Because it involves minimum standards we have now asked the Labour Inspectorate to investigate. It is no surprise that many salaried managers are migrant workers. Pay rates are only effective if you actually get paid for all your work. Burger King needs to wake up - the days of employers getting away with stealing their workers time and wages are over.”
Other significant issues union members are striking over:
Missed Breaks
This is a
big problem at BK and important for the health and safety of
workers. BK have offered compensation (as they have to in
law anyway) but that should be the last resort - they need
to do everything they can to make sure the breaks happen.
They refuse to record when extra pay is a result of missed
breaks. You can’t fix a problem if you don’t even know
when, and how often, it is happening.
Decent Pay
for skilled waged staff
BK wage rates are
amongst the lowest of the major food companies. They are
offering a margin of only 2 cents per hour for skilled Crew
Trainers and Maintenance staff. Workers simply want the same
rates as other major fast food company workers.
Decent Hours
Unite has spent over two
years trying to get BK to honour our last agreement on hours
which was supposed to end “zero hour” rosters. We have
agreement on improvements but BK refuses to ensure the union
is consulted as the changes are rolled out. Members simply
do not have any confidence that BK will properly implement
the new roster system unless their union is involved at each
step.
Breaks Between Shifts
BK
thinks their workers can travel home from work, feed and
clean themselves, get 8 hours sleep and then get fed,
dressed and travel to work again - all in 9 hours. As rents
go up in bigger cities many members are forced to live
further and further from their work. Forcing them to be back
at work only 9 hours later is not only anti-social, but a
threat to their health and safety.
Health and
Safety reporting
We have more Health and Safety
issues raised by Burger King members than any other employer
we deal with. Our simple request, which almost all other
employers have in place, is a system which allows workers to
formally report H&S incidents without having to go through
their manager (who is often the cause of the problem in the
first place). BK’s response: an email address and
answerphone that no members we asked had ever heard of and
with no process to make sure incidents are followed
up.
WTF?
BK even refuses to number the
clauses in the Collective Agreement to make it easy to read.
Go figure.
Burger King was asked to provide a full offer to put to members in May. That was resoundingly rejected and members voted by over 90% to authorise strike action. Since then Unite has been trying to get BK to mediation to resolve the issues. They finally confirmed availability and attendance for today (Thursday 14th June), but then pulled out yesterday.
ends