A hospitality giant is facing calls to negotiate with its workers after pushing staff towards a new workplace deal that could let it avoid paying penalty rates.
The Queensland-based Mantle Group Hospitality has legally avoided paying its casuals weekend and public holiday rates through a so-called “zombie” agreement first signed in 1999.
The “zombie” deal was quashed last year by the Fair Work Commission but, during the dispute, Mantle reportedly moved its staff on to another workplace deal. It claims the new arrangement has been “well-received” and it intends to pay weekend loadings and penalties.
Mantle Group Hospitality, owned by Godfrey Mantle, owns 15 venues across south-east Queensland and two in Sydney. These include Jimmy’s on the Mall in Brisbane’s CBD, The Squire’s Landing on Sydney Harbour, other James Squire brewhouse venues in Brisbane, as well as several restaurants.
The casuals among Mantle’s more than 700 staff were covered by the agreement with Hot Wok Food Makers until it was also terminated by the commission this month.
Days after that ruling, Mantle Group wrote in a letter to “all casual staff” that they would have their employment cease on 23 January. The same day staff received job offers under a new workplace agreement for a different entity, KGS Staff Pty Ltd. The story was first reported by the Australian Financial Review.
The new KGS agreement does not include a provision for weekend penalty rates and says workers can be asked to swap all public holidays that attract penalty rates for other days.
A Mantle Group Hospitality spokesperson denied it would direct staff to swap public holidays and suggested the EBA was a “minimum”. The spokesperson said “weekend loading” and public holiday penalty rates would apply.
Maurice Blackburn principal Giri Sivaraman, who represented workers challenging the Mantle agreements, noted the definition of “ordinary hourly rate” in the new deal said the “weekend rate was inclusive of penalties”.
“Yet under the award, the rate is not inclusive of penalties,” he said. “You get penalties for working weekends and public holidays [under the award].”
Terminating the 1999 “zombie agreement” last year, Fair Work commissioner Jennifer Hunt said it was a “disgrace” the deal had allowed the company to avoid paying penalty rates for “at least” the “last decade”. This month, the full bench of the commission also said it was considering referring a Mantle official to the federal police over misleading evidence during the Hot Wok case.
United Workers Union organiser Martin de Rooy said Mantle Group had gone to “shocking” lengths to avoid paying entitlements over a long period.
“The impetus to all of this was the 22-year-old zombie agreement being terminated,” he said. “That was only done because young workers said, ‘enough’s enough’ and applied to terminate it.
“Following Hot Wok being quashed, Mantle Group have made offers to workers to put them on yet another substandard agreement. Instead of doing that, Mantle Group should negotiate with its workers and the union.”
The new pay offer also has a clause preventing staff from disclosing “confidential information” including “the employment agreement and its contents”.
A Mantle Group Hospitality spokesperson said KGS Staff Pty Ltd’s casual employees would be “paid a 225% loading on the award base rate for public holidays such as Australia Day”.
The spokesperson said the EBA requirements are what KGS Staff Pty Ltd must comply “with at a minimum” and the company would pay all employees “rates well above the award”.
“Employees have been communicated with via correspondence and venue briefings that loading will apply to weekends and staff will not be required to swap public holidays to another date designated by KGS Staff Pty Ltd,” the spokesperson said.
The spokesperson said “casual employees do receive a higher rate of pay for hours worked on a Saturday, Sunday and public holiday compared to a weekday”. The company was “confident” the pay and conditions “more than meets the current market conditions in the hospitality industry”.
Sivaraman said it had been like “playing whack-a-mole with Mantle Group”. “How do long we have to pursue them until they agree to meet with the union and negotiate a fair dinkum EBA?” he said.
The Mantle Group’s 23 January letter is addressed as “ATTN: all casual staff”, but the Mantle Group spokesperson did not say how many casual staff had been moved on to the new agreement.
The spokesperson said the “transfer has been well received, contrary to what has been reported”.
The FWC’s 11 January written decision quashing the Hot Wok agreement also said it was considering referring Mantle Group’s human resources chief Darren Latham to the AFP for potentially giving false or misleading information about that pay deal.
The Mantle Group spokeswoman said Hot Wok was appealing the 11 January decision quashing that workplace agreement to the federal court “on the basis of bias” and it was not appropriate to comment further.
