Indian national, Tosif Varsi, who worked as a store manager for Domino's is desperately looking for someone to sponsor his stay in Australia.
His sponsorship visa is about to expire as the Dominos franchise he was working for lost his store.
Varsi will be deported in 10 days if he doesn’t find another sponsor-er.
"I tried so hard. I ... was treated bad with other workers calling me Indian swear words and talking in fake Indian accents," he says. "I kept working there but it made me depressed but I had no choice because I needed the sponsorship."
on Saturday exposed widespread underpayment by Domino’s franchise store owners and how some of them were selling their visas illegally for up to $150,000.
Source: Domino's
Most of those underpaid or being sold sponsored visas were found to be international students or sponsored workers from China and India.
This investigation also cited a case of a franchise owner who on phone offered to sell the sponsored visa to an international student.
‘I will say straight that we want to sell this sponsorship,’ Eric, a representative of a Domino's Pizza franchisee is recorded talking in Mandarin.
"But you need to pay some money," he says.
"We might need you pay $100,000 plus ... $100-$150,000."
Another former Domino's worker Azrael Yin told Fairfax that many franchisees sell sponsorships.
"I know of one person who is sponsored and works 60 hours a week and gets paid for 40 hours," he said.
also revealed the widespread wage fraud at the Dominos franchises.
A Domino's Pizza store is seen in Sydney. Source: AAP
Yin who now has gained Australia’s permanent residency complained to Domino’s head office nine months ago about how his boss, a franchisee owner was ‘trimming’ employee’s hours on record and reducing their pay accordingly.
His boss had clearly directed him to keep labour costs below 27 per cent of sales by any means.
“If this week [there were] bad sales, labour blows out to 33 per cent of sales, so I receive a call to make it 27 per cent. Then I deduct my own time as well as the other workers,” he told .
Nirmal Patel who owned a Dominos’ franchisee in Sydney for two years from 2012 told that he was so stressed running it that he sold it off.
“I remember I had to use my wife to do deliveries with my two kids in the back of the car,” Patel said.
“I thought I would stay in the system long enough to recoup my costs first, but the longer I stayed in the system the worse it got,” he said.
Dominos in a media statement said, ‘There is no reason, no excuse, and no tolerance for any Domino’s franchise that chooses not to pay its employees correctly or fails to meet expectations around ethics and governance.
‘Domino’s has a dedicated investigative and auditing compliance department, which investigates franchisees for noncompliance with their employment law obligations. The team works closely with the Fair Work Ombudsman under the Self Compliance Deed.
‘In the past three years, Domino’s has removed four franchisees, operating seven stores, from our system for deliberately underpaying their employees.'
