The Fair work Ombudsman has pursued legal action for the second time against the operators of the Upper East Side bar and restaurant in Eastern Sydney.
Facing court is Upper East Side Bar Pty Ltd. along with the company’s former director, Julia Rose Gelonese.
Upper East Side Bar Pty Ltd. face a possible maximum penalty of up to $33,300 for an alleged Compliance Notice breach with an additional $66,000 for alleged false information and document breaches.
Gelonese faces a penalty of to $13, 200 for allegedly providing false and misleading information and a further $6,660 per breach for her alleged involvement in the Compliance Notice breaches.
The new litigation follows after an investigation was carried out by the litigator after receiving request from a worker.
The inspector issued a compliance notice after forming the belief that eight employees had not been paid entitlements owed according to the Restaurant Industry Award 2010 and the National Employment Standards.
The workers were employed in front of house and kitchen roles between September 2019 and March 2020. Some of them were from Korea, Japan or Britain and were on working holiday visas.
It was believed that the employees were previously underpaid minimum wages for ordinary hours, overtime, penalty rates for evenings and weekends and casual loadings.
In addition, some of the workers had apparently not been paid accrued but untaken annual leave entitlements on termination of their employment and did not receive the required notice of termination.
Allegedly, the company failed to comply with Compliance Notices that required it to pay back employees outstanding entitlements which amounted to $24,412.85 and to provide reasonable evidence of gross and net payments to the Fair Work Ombudsman by set dates in January 2021.
Partial rectification of the outstanding entitlements was believed to have occurred once in August 2021.
The regulator also alleges that Upper East Side Bar Pty Ltd. and Gelonese provided false and misleading information and documents to Fair Work inspectors on 12 separate occasions between January and May 2021.
The company have received an order to rectify the outstanding entitlements to one employee, plus interest and to provide evidence of payments made to the Australian Taxation office of PAYG amounts withheld from payments made to employees.
A directions hearing will commence on 1 February 2022.
Image credit: Out in Canberra