Pizza Hut workers shortchanged

BY JESSICA ROUSE

A Pizza Hut franchise in Newcastle has been caught out for underpaying staff.

Fair Work has found the Hunter Street outlet underpaid 24 workers including international staff $20,000 over a six month period.

The employees were casuals and all aged between 16 and 20 years. Four of the workers were underpaid more than $3,000, with one employee underpaid nearly $4,800.

Pizza Hut is being slammed by the Fair Work Ombudsman for failing to take action over the underpayment of its staff. It's not the first time, ombudsman Natalie James says they've been working with the fast food chain as a whole on a range of issues.

"We've been talking about the fact that 28 out of 32 of the stores we audited recently were not correctly paying their delivery drivers and now we're seeing vulnerable in-store staff also being underpaid."

She believes there also needs to be more transparency.

"Certainly we'd like a meaningful commitment from Pizza Hut to step up, to work with us with a transparent arrangement that is designed to ensure that every worker serving us pizzas, delivering those pizzas from Pizza Hut are being paid correctly."

Image foursquare.com