Celebrity chef underpays staff $2.6 million
Celebrity chef George Calombaris has been forced to apologise for underpaying nearly 200 workers at his restaurants by $2.6 million.
Over the past six years, Calombaris underpaid 162 of the 430 staff at restaurants including The Press Club, Gazi and Hellenic Republic which are part of the chef's Made Establishment Group. Staff at his Greek street food restaurant chain Jimmy Grants were not affected.
Calombaris said staff were not paid the correct salaries or overtime because of what he called “poor processes in classifying employees".
The MasterChef celebrity sent staff an email on Monday apologising for the blunder.
"You, our amazing team, are the key to our success. I am so sorry we have messed up and let you down on a fundamental issue," Calombaris said.
"I am devastated by what has happened and we have been working extremely hard to fix this. I want to be clear that getting it right means ensuring that every single one of our team members is paid what they are entitled to under the industry award, and that any outstanding money owed to staff is rectified."
The Fair Work Ombudsman alerted the company to the problems two years ago. But it was not investigated properly until Troy McDonagh was appointed the new chief executive in October last year.
The mix-up with the pay even saw some staff overpaid.
Calombaris addressed that in his email too.
"Any team members overpaid will not be asked to pay back any money," he said. "Those people will retain the same payments they are now on."
Affected employees are expected to be back-paid an average of just over $16,000 each.
The payout figure is expected to grow because the business will have to contact staff who have moved on.
KPMG has been called in to conduct a comprehensive review.
by Leon Gettler, April 4th 2017
