Pam Magazine 9/13: Working conditions in top restaurants brought to light

Take traffic, for example. If people started to pick and choose which traffic regulations they wished to follow, there would be chaos on the roads, collisions and other accidents.”

Tapio Ojanen, chief union rep at Royal Restaurants Ltd, a large restaurant chain in Helsinki, is quick to shoot down the statements made by top restaurateurs in the newspaper Helsingin Sanomat about lump sum payments being characteristic of chefs and the restaurant business, and the driving force for ambitious workers.

Last September, the outlook was grim in many areas of work for Mr Ojanen. Majority of kitchens were working fine, but there were some shady contracts, and no-one wished for union representatives to investigate. At the end of May, the voice on the telephone is that of a busy but relieved chief union rep. Instead of discussing the problems, he wants to talk about solving them.

“There have been big changes in the company,” he says.

“People are no longer forced to work long hours and the collective agreement is adhered to. We just decided to address the problems.”

The chief union rep emphasises that in his position, changes require the support of management. Last year, Mr Ojanen negotiated with the Managing Director and Human Resources Manager to agree on common rules. Then he started to ’sell’ them in the field. He went through all work places and all rotas, meeting with all employees.

“You cannot just turn up in a restaurant kitchen,” he points out.

“You need to have backup support, you have to gain the trust of the supervisors and employees, and you need to know how to look to see if everything is ok.”

For him, the changes made at Royal Restaurants have required a ’massive amount of work’. And the chief union rep intends to stay vigilant.

Need for continuous control

Ville Liikanen, the union rep at Kämp Group, which is based in the Helsinki metropolitan area, agrees with Business Controller Nina Lindqvist, who represents group management: restaurants in the group abide by legislation and the collective agreement to the letter.

“Sometimes, way back, some people may have been flying solo and got found out afterwards,” Ms Lindqvist says, with 20 years’ managerial experience in the field.

“I can remember, before I came to Kämp Group, some ten years ago, things were ’pretty wild’.” For example, no double-time was paid for overtime work, regardless of the time of day. At Kämp Group, the units are controlled systematically. Rotas are checked and we make sure that people actually work according to the rotas. According to Ms Lindqvist, who approves all employment contracts for the group, vigilance is important.

“Our kitchen supervisors ask us from time to time if they could agree to pay lump sums. The request has usually come from the employee.”

’Back on track’

Service Union United PAM can only address problems if employees contest an issue. The union’s office in Helsinki is currently dealing with four contest cases, all regarding restaurants owned by Chef Hans Välimäki’s company Suolapojat. The stir caused by the wages paid by Chez Dominique and other top restaurants provided PAM with means to act. PAM sent a notice to the employers’ Finnish Hospitality Association (MaRa) urging the association to make sure that even those restaurants under suspicion for malpractice start to honour the collective agreements. Eero Lindström, Labour Market Director for MaRa, confirms that the association has “taken steps to monitor the situation”.

“We have provided information regarding the payment of wages in accordance with the collective agreement. Our objective is to get things back on track.

If we discovered that our notice did not cause changes in the operations of a company, we would send another notice.” But, according to Mr Lindström, a second letter has never been required. Incidentally, the Labour Market Director is nonplussed by the stir caused by the lump sum payments and the interest that Pam Magazine is taking in the subject. In his opinion, PAM and MaRa should join forces in enhancing the image of the restaurant business instead of doing the opposite.

Mr Lindström emphasises that members of MaRa employ some 60,000 people, and in 2012, the union received only 33 judicial cases of wage disputes. On the whole, the number of these cases has been very small according to him.

Tarkko Laurinen, who is dealing with the Suolapojat cases at PAM’s Helsinki office, digs up current figures which also include cases of employees working for companies that are not organised in a union. Wage-related cases of people working within the hospitality industry currently amount to 114.The total number of disputes in the restaurant industry is 175.

Worth Stirring

A notice letter was also sent to a company running three restaurants in Helsinki, BW-Restaurants. One of the two owners, Matti Wikberg, has publically admitted that some of the chefs in his restaurants have been paid fixed extra sums on top of the wage-scale determined pay.

“We have changed our practice, and starting on 1 June, all [chefs] will be paid in accordance with the collective agreement,” Mr Wikberg replies to a Pam Magazine enquiry via email.

Annika Rönni-Sällinen, Chief Negotiator for the hotel, restaurant and leisure industries at PAM, is satisfied that the incorrect practices common in the restaurant industry have been brought to daylight, and as a result, the problems can now be addressed.

“It is very important to us that employees get paid what they are entitled to.”

Sini Saaritsa