George Calombaris’ Made Establishment has been fined $200,000 for underpaying staff over $7.8 million after entering into a court-enforceable undertaking with the Fair Work Ombudsman.
The mass underpayments occurred at restaurants including the Press Club, Gazi and Hellenic Republic. However, during investigations, the FWO found staff were also underpaid at Jimmy Grants, with the group ordered to back-pay $16,000 to nine employees. Staff have now been backpaid.
The Ombudsman found the underpayments were the result of failure to ‘correctly apply annualised salary arrangements for staff by failing to conduct annual reconciliations to check that workers on annual salary arrangements were paid for overtime and penalty rate hours worked’.
The Ombudsman said the group also failed to pay some staff at the correct classification level for their duties under the Restaurant Industry Award.
Under the enforceable undertaking, Calombaris will be forced to complete speaking engagements to educate the industry on workplace compliance.
Training will now be provided to staff who work across human resources, payroll and on-site management and each restaurant will be externally audited until 2022.
Made joins several other high-profile operators who have been caught up in wage scandals including Neil Perry’s Rockpool Dining Group, Heston Blumenthal and Guillaume Brahimi.
