Open letter to Russel Creedy from Unite over Alternative holiday theft

Dear Russel,

It is with great concern that the manipulation of rosters to deny staff alternative holidays at Restaurant Brands has been confirmed to be so widespread that it must have been company policy at a senior level.

When we raised this problem with your HR department in the past they denied it was policy and said it was just being done by some rogue managers.

This is clearly not the case.

The company policy in the past was that you had to have worked three out of four of the previous Monday's if the public holiday was on a Monday to earn an entitlement to a lieu day. This was a narrow interpretation designed to benefit the company but even that policy was deliberately manipulated to deny entitlement.

The Employment Relations Authority has now ruled that a simple majority of weeks worked over three month period to avoid manipulation is enough to trigger an entitlement.

As a chief executive, who was paid a million dollar bonus because of the success of the company, you have to take moral and legal responsibility for ensuring all staff get their legal entitlements.
The company, or at least the agents of the company, have failed to be open and honest with Unite or its staff over this issue. We have lost confidence in their ability to do so in the future.

At the same time, we are still waiting for a substantive response to the annual leave calculation issue that we first raised in February 2015, over two and a half years ago. Unite Union, despite alerting RBL to the issue in the first place, has not been consulted or involved in the investigation of and solution to the problem. RBL has only provided us with a brief timeline for remediation that will now clearly not be met. Our members, your employees, simply do not have confidence that RBL will make sure they get the wages and leave they are legally entitled to.

We would like a meeting with you personally to get an assurance that this will not continue and that that company accepts it has been at fault and will do all in its power to ensure that the thousands of staff who have worked for the company over at least the past six years get their legal entitlements.

Regards,
Mike

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