Rampant 'exploitation' at Rockpool restaurant empire   

8 July 2018
The Age
 

The restaurant empire fronted by celebrity chef Neil Perry is saving millions of dollars a year from unpaid wages, with senior managers and chefs saying its profits are based on the systemic exploitation of workers.   

Overwhelming new evidence from current and former employees of Rockpool Dining Group includes hundreds of pages of leaked company documents, rosters and records of pay and hours.

All point to the group’s dependence on extensive unpaid work by permanent skilled chefs and managers who are often migrants.


And a former general manager of one of its Sydney restaurants, Fratelli Fresh, said wages budgets were set at the private equity-owned group at “impossible” and “unattainable” levels, and could only be reached by “burning out” staff.

Last week an investigation by The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald revealed that key staff at restaurants Sake and Munich Brauhaus, which are part of Rockpool Dining Group, were earning as little as half their lawful entitlements.   


Staff were being paid for 38 hours a week while working up to 20 hours of unpaid overtime; their actual pay could be as little as $15 an hour. Some weeks chefs would be as much $800 out of pocket compared to the award, the wages safety net.


Rockpool Dining Group, Australia’s largest high-end restaurant business, disputed the findings of the investigation.

However, dozens of pages of documentary evidence, and interviews with more than a dozen employees, indicate similar practices are in place across the wider Rockpool empire including at restaurants Fratelli Fresh, The Bavarian, The Argyle and even the flagship, Rockpool Bar & Grill.

"They [workers] were treated as dispensable on every level,” the former general manager said. “They [company executives] do not care about the humanity of the industry.''

''All that was ever talked about was the bottom line … You were told ‘you need to get these numbers’, I remember telling them that the labour numbers they wanted were impossible.''

A Rockpool Dining Group spokeswoman said the company did not believe there was underpayment across its business but said it was inquiring into the reports.

''We don’t believe there is a systemic issue of excessive overtime,’’ a spokeswoman said.

''That said, we will be looking into the issues which have been reported – this process has already commenced – and if we identify that any employee has been underpaid we will rectify that situation.’’

While adhering to prudent financial discipline was important to running a responsible and sustainable business, the spokeswoman said, ''this is not at the expense of employee wellbeing and entitlements".

The hospitality industry has a culture of long and unsociable hours and the restaurant award allows management to ''buy out'' penalties and overtime for a 25 per cent higher hourly rate.

However, under the buyout, workers must still be paid more than the award overall, and it is a clear breach of workplace law for an employer to require excessive unpaid overtime that pushes wages below minimum rates.

Chefs at Rockpool Dining Group would only need to work between one to five hours a week of unpaid overtime to be underpaid, an analysis by The Age and The SMH of hourly and pay records shows.

The group says it has systems in place to track overtime and ''mechanisms in place including time off in lieu to compensate for overtime hours".

In late 2016, Neil Perry sold his restaurants for a reported $65 million to a company owned by Quadrant Private Equity, to create the merged Rockpool Dining Group.

Perry remains a shareholder and the group’s chief brand and culinary director. He declined a request for an interview, noting he was not a company director.

Neither group chief executive Thomas Pash nor Quadrant boss Chris Hadley agreed to an interview.