Celebrity chef George Calombaris, who appears on MasterChef Australia, has been fined by the Fair Work Ombudsman after admitting to underpaying $7.83 million in wages to 515 current and former employees of his hospitality empire.
According to an article in The Age, 'the chef has been ordered to make a $200,000 "contrition payment" and must also make a series of public statements to promote compliance with the Fair Work Act, according to an enforceable undertaking announced on Thursday morning'.
He is one of the judges of the Network Ten series MasterChef Australia. Prior to his role on MasterChef Australia, he appeared regularly on the daytime Network Ten cooking show Ready Steady Cook.
He owns several restaurants in Melbourne. His flagship restaurant, The Press Club, was awarded The Age Good Food Guide "Best New Restaurant 2008" with George named "Chef of the Year 2008".
He draws on his Greek, Cypriot and Italian heritage for inspiration.
It comes after a four year investigation by the Fair Work Ombudsman which found a number of issues including 'a failure to pay minimum award rates, penalty rates, casual loadings, overtime rates, split-shift allowances and annual leave loadings'.
Initial estimates in 2017 were significantly less than have come to light, at the time George and his company Made Establishment announced that 162 workers had been underpaid $2.6 million because of "historically poor processes".
The chef issued a statement on Thursday morning saying: "We apologise to all our affected team members, past and present – as it is our people that make our restaurants great, and it is our priority to ensure all of our employees feel respected, rewarded and supported in their roles."
Unions have called for him to be sacked as a MasterChef judge and United Voice union national secretary, Jo-anne Schofield, is quoted in The Guardian saying: “We are truly shocked at the full extent of wage theft at Made Establishment.
“For the seriousness of this crime, a $200,000 fine is not sufficient.
“If someone deliberately took $1,000 out of someone else’s bank account, there would be a high likelihood of a criminal conviction for theft. But when you’re a multimillionaire restaurateur / celebrity chef you can take $7.83m in wages from your workers and get away with a ‘contrition payment’.
“And you get to keep your TV show, your huge profile and mansion and keep raking in cash off the back of hardworking chefs, waitstaff and bartenders.
“All the while you’ve also been campaigning to slash the penalty rates for all hospitality workers."
The agreement with the Fair Work Ombudsman will require him to implement new payroll and compliance systems across all of his sites and each venue must also be independently audited for the next three years.
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