Staff protest over reorganisation at Rez's

A London restaurant group is seeking legal advice after 22 kitchen staff at one of its restaurants refused to re-apply for their jobs last week.

Sevan Leisure Holdings, which bought the 200-seat Maggiore's restaurant in Covent Garden out of receivership in March, has asked staff to re-apply for jobs at the restaurant. If they refuse they could be dismissed. It has renamed the restaurant Rez's.

The company claims that kitchen costs are running at £2,000 more per week than they should and that it needs to "reorganise" its workforce.

Dave Turnbull, London organiser of the Transport and General Workers' Union, who is representing the 16 chefs and six kitchen porters, said that under the new contracts staff would be financially worse-off for effectively doing the same jobs.

"It seems that they are trying to get rid of the old brigade so that they can get in new people who are not in the union, "he said.

But Rez Halil, managing director of Sevan Leisure, which owns seven restaurants, claimed that rates of pay would remain the same but the number of staff hours would be reduced. He denied allegations that he wanted the current brigade to leave.

"I am aware that the staff are unhappy, but we have to reorganise the business to become efficient with multi-skilled staff," he said.

Source: Caterer & Hotelkeeper magazine, 1-7 June 2000