George Calombaris: Unions under fire over empire collapse

Employers say unions should ‘bear much of the blame’ for the loss of hundreds of jobs and the food empire collapse.

Employers have declared unions should “bear much of the opprobrium” for the collapse of the George Calombaris empire and the loss of hundreds of jobs as they relentlessly overinflated employee underpayments and branded companies as “thieves”.

Australian Industry Group chief executive Innes Willox also accused the Morrison government and the States of backing a divisive agenda by “parroting” union terms such as wage theft.

Mr Wilox asserted the $7.8 million in underpayments to more than 500 workers by the Calombaris empire were reportedly “genuinely in error, and then self-reported and all employees back-paid in full”.

“Despite this, the heat put into the issue of wage underpayments through using unnecessarily loaded terms like ‘wage theft’, have had the result of costing more than 400 people their jobs,” he said on Tuesday.

“Balance needs to be restored to the wage underpayment discussion given the fact that the vast majority of underpayments are inadvertent and fixed when discovered.

“The unions, in particular, through relentlessly overinflating and politicising the issue and branding employers as ‘thieves’, should bear much of the opprobrium for the sad outcome in the Calombaris case and others.”

Victorian Trade Hall Council secretary Luke Hilakari said the comments were outrageous, out of touch with the majority of working people and community standards”.

Mr Hilakari said the restaurants collapsed largely as a result of the community boycotting the businesses once they found out about the underpayments.

“Everybody found out about it and decided not to go to his businesses because it spoke to his character,” he said.

Mr Willox said Ai Group had been “warning for years that anti-business rhetoric has reached fever pitch, risking jobs and investment and Federal and State Governments were supporting a divisive agenda by parroting overly emotive union terms such as “wage theft”.

“That warning has gone unheeded and we are now seeing the consequences in jobs lost and a big employing business ruined,” he said.

“Hopefully the Calombaris case will be a clarion call for common sense to prevail and we will see the last of such damaging outcomes.”

Attorney-General Christian Porter last year put corporate Australia on notice over the underpayment of workers, saying the directors of companies that fail to pay workers properly could be banned from ­sitting on boards.

Declaring that “corporate Australia has been asleep at the wheel” when it came to ensuring workers were paid correctly, Mr Porter ­revealed the Coalition would consider empowering the Fair Work Ombudsman to pursue banning order applications against directors of underpaying companies.

“I suspect the only way you will get board directors who sit on boards and get 180 grand a year for 12 meetings to take this stuff seriously is if there is something on the line for them,’’ Mr Porter told The Australian.

Mr Porter, also the Industrial Relations Minister, expressed support for an ACTU proposal ­allowing individual workers to go to the commission to have underpayment claims dealt with quickly and efficiently.

Rush to reopen parts of empire

Administrators are rushing to strike deals to enable key parts of George Calombaris’s food empire to reopen under different ownership. But there could be as few as five days for any deals to be struck.

Administrator Craig Shepard said on Tuesday there had been up to 15 entities that had expressed interest in some of the assets.

“Obviously we’d like to see the venues continue,” Mr Shepard said. The Jimmy Grants Greek street food chain could possibly be sold as a whole but negotiations are at a very early stage.

“We really need to move quickly.”

There are five landmark restaurants and seven Jimmy Grants outlets that have been placed in administration. He said it was feasible that assets could be sold and turned around by a new owner in less than a week.

Mr Shepard, from KordaMentha, said shareholders in the company would not be examined under the process.

Mr Calombaris is a shareholder and not a director.