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A 7-Eleven employee is seen inside the store in Kuala Lumpur May 8, 2014. Malaysia's biggest convenience store operator, 7-Eleven Malaysia Holdings Bhd , is seeking to raise up to $226 million in its initial public offering, a term sheet of the deal showed.The company, controlled by Malaysian billionaire Vincent Tan, set an indicative price range of 1.33 ringgit to 1.38 ringgit per share. The top end of the range values the company at a forward price-to-earnings ratio of 19.5 times. REUTERS/Samsul Said

Russ Withers, the Australian chairman of 7-Eleven, the country’s largest convenience store, said that the franchisee’s practice of wage rorting is not very prevalent within the network. An independent panel has been appointed by the company to investigate the complaints lodged by underpaid workers after the issue caught media attention.

Investigation by Fairfax Media and ABC’s Four Corners revealed that more than two-thirds of the 225 7-Eleven stores in Australia had wage compliance issues along with claims that most of these branches would have faced severe financial rout if their employees had been paid the salaries they deserved. Withers admitted his responsibility and promised to pay all current as well as former employees the wages that have been due.

"I really believe this is relatively few franchise owners who are doing this," he told 720 ABC Perth. "We do not believe it is widespread but the investigation and the independent panel will turn that up. I could tell you that payroll responsibilities are the franchisees,' they are the employers of the staff, but at the end of the day this happened on our watch and we are taking responsibility for it."

Meanwhile, Federal Labor said that foreign labours who might have breached visa rules to work for the company should be pardoned of the political offence. Labor senator Deborah O'Neill said that every Australian who has ever shopped from 7-Eleven is possible feeling negatively affected by the wage scandal. She said that these Australian customers feel that they had been so long shopping at a store which treats its workers like second-class citizens and have been trapped in wage slavery.

Meanwhile, Bill Shorten has ended up in a false position after he confused 7-Eleven with Subway and immediately tendered an apology on Twitter for his mistake. "We've all been appalled and disgusted by the scenes at Subway where literally thousands of people on visas are being ripped off," he said.

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