Muhammad’s story
Muhammad owns a café franchise company as part of an emerging Australian café chain, headed by Robusta Holdings. As the head franchisor, Robusta Holdings, sets out requirements for the operation of the cafés operating under its brand.
Both Robusta Holdings and Muhammad’s franchise company are PCBUs, and have a shared duty to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, the health and safety of workers working at the cafe and other persons in the cafe such as customers. This means they must consult, coordinate and cooperate activities with each other, and cannot contract out of or transfer their WHS obligations. However, to make sure they both meet their duties and avoid unnecessary duplication of effort, they can enter into an agreement to manage the WHS risk or meet a WHS obligation.
Muhammad is both a worker for and officer in his franchise company. This means he has more than one duty. As an officer he must exercise due diligence to ensure his franchise company complies with its duties as a PCBU.
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