Employer-employee consultations at Restamax end with an unfortunate outcome
The restaurant and labour hire company Restamax has ended its employer-employee consultations, resulting in a reduction of 200 jobs and 40 jobs being made part-time.
The consultations covered 1080 employees of the former Royal Restaurants. Early on Monday evening Restamax announced that as a result of the consultations 200 jobs are to be cut and 40 jobs made part-time. According to the media release, the reductions will be made through redundancies, voluntary arrangements and by ending on-call employment relationships. Employees will also be consulted on working in various different restaurants, so as to cope with fluctuations in demand.
Restamax is 12 years old, and in June bought Royal Restaurants, a traditional restaurant operator almost 30 years in the business. The deal was billed as the biggest in the sector’s history. The employer-employee consultations began in September. Royal Restaurants had 70 restaurants, mostly in Helsinki, including Palace, Teatteri, Savoy, Elite and Strindberg. The two companies have had a different culture regarding temporary agency labour. Restamax’s own labour hire company, Smile Henkilöstöpalvelut, has grown strongly. Restamax has offered temporary labour, whereas Royal Restaurants have had more permanent employees. Now Restamax, with around 220 restaurants, has announced that it is looking to achieve flexibility and cost efficiencies and six million euros in savings through the employer-employee consultations. The two companies’ admin departments are to be merged.