Poor treatment of migrant chefs another blow for hospo recruitment

Earlier this week, Nine Entertainment, owner of the Nine Network, ran a 60 Minutes report followed by a similar piece in The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald about the behavior of Sydney-based hospitality giant, Merivale’s, toward its staff. The stories included alleged misconduct towards vulnerable workers, including a number of chefs who were recruited from Mexico.

Nine reported that Merivale, responding to the industry’s shortage of chefs,  partnered with a United States-headquartered staffing business, Alliance Abroad, to recruit migrant chefs on a four-year working visa, where the pitch included higher wages, shorter hours, and the opportunity to advance their careers. However, the reality was, according to the chefs, that they were required to work upwards of 60 hours each week without penalty rates, while also allegedly suffering discrimination and bullying.

On top of excessive overtime for extrapay the chefs recruited from Mexico were required to repay $13,000, via automatic payroll deduction across 18 months, to Alliance Abroad International for a “Cultural Support Program” which was for “relocation support for a period of four years”, but chefs said support was limited to a brief hostel stay and visa processing. It did not include flights.

The Fair Work Ombudsman has confirmed that it is investigating the Merivale Hospitality Group as a result of the allegations of misconduct.

The company, which owns property assets worth an estimated $3 billion, was founded by John and Merivale Hemmes in the late 1950s and is now run by their son, Justin.

According to the Merivale website, they operate 91 pubs, restaurants, cafes, and clubs, with almost all based in NSW, including high-profile Sydney venues Establishment, ivy, Slip Inn, Mr Wong and Hotel CBD.

In a comprehensive 2100 word statement, Merivale and Alliance Abroad have denied the allegations and accused Nine of malicious journalism and intimidation.

Merivale has an unfortunate public history with allegations made by their former employees.

In November 2024, Merivale agreed to pay $19.5 million to settle a class action alleging $129 million in under-payment of approximately 14,000 employees who were employed between December 2013 and December 2019. The settlement included no admission of wrongdoing.

The claim, filed in 2019, alleged the affected Merivale employees were not paid for the significant overtime they were required to work, beyond the maximum allowance of 38 hours per week. Merivale denied the claims. On 30 March 2021, the Federal Court ruled that the company’s WorkChoices agreement was not validly approved, paving the way for the negotiations that led to the settlement three and a half years later.

Hemmes is a well-known Liberal Party fundraiser, having hosted fundraisers at his Sydney eastern suburbs mansion and donated more than $350,000 to the party since 2018.

I offer no comment on the substance of the allegations reported by Nine, as the Fair Work investigation will report in due course. However, at the very least, the media reports of former employees’ experiences suggest a significant mismatch between what migrant chefs were expecting and what was delivered by Merivale.

Stories like these highlight how easily sponsored skilled visa holders can be exploited by employers with ill intent.

When a worker has uprooted their life and their family’s life to move across the world for work, they are placing a great deal of trust in their employer.

Finding another employer willing to take over their visa sponsorship is difficult and time-consuming,especially if English is not their first language. This is, potentially, an unhealthy power balance, ripe for exploitation.

The high-profile nature of these cases also acts as a dampener on the desire of school leavers to pursue a career as a chef, or more broadly in hospitality.

My daughter (pictured above, right) is considering a career change after three years of working as a chef. Fortunately, she has not been subject to any poor treatment during her employment, nor does she work unsociable hours. However, the physical nature of the work, the frustration of working with old equipment, on top of a pay scale that gives her no realistic chance of buying her own home in Melbourne without the bank of mum and dad, means she’s another in the long line of chefs heading for the exit.

Jobs and Skills Australia’s Jobs and Skills Atlas lists the labour force status of chefs as ‘shortage’, with the reason listed as ‘retention gap’. The definition of “retention gap” is “…where there are below average rates of retention, potentially reinforced by low numbers of new applicants per vacancy. This is a category where increasing the throughput of qualified applicants is unlikely to solve the problem because of the low likelihood of retaining them. Ways to enhance the attractiveness of the occupation through improved remuneration and/or working conditions, professional development, and clearer career pathways would be potential solutions to alleviate this kind of shortage.”

Amen to that.

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