Treatment of pub staff 'appalling'

Tauranga publican Mike Colosimo treated staff like expendable objects in a dispute between him and partner Phil Kingsley Jones, the Employment Relations Authority has found.

It admonished the businessman for his "appalling" treatment of employees of the Kingsley Jones pub last November, saying he "committed a gross breach of their trust and confidence".

Mr Colosimo has been ordered to pay former kitchenhand Gordon Parker 7 per cent interest on $306.25 in unpaid wages and holiday pay. The authority also ordered him to pay Mr Parker $6000 for humiliation and distress and $1000 for failing to record working hours and wages and disclose these records when requested. He must also pay the authority $3000 for the latter.

Mr Colosimo's lawyer, Terry Hibbitt, said they were looking at grounds for appeal to the Employment Court.

Last November, it was reported that Mr Parker was one of more than a dozen staff affected when Phil Kingsley Jones, Jonah Lomu's former manager, split from the bar on The Strand after a "difference of opinion" with business partners Mr Colosimo and John Harvey. The bar now operates as the Cornerstone Pub.

Five of 15 staff members said at the time that they had not been paid for two weeks.

The authority said that on November 24, when staff arrived at the bar for a meeting with Mr Colosimo, they were evicted by police.

Mr Colosimo had behaved in an appalling manner. "It is hard to think of a more disrespectful way of terminating the employment relationship."

When Mr Kingsley Jones left, Mr Colosimo claimed they had agreed staff would be made redundant and told to re-apply for their jobs. The authority said this conversation never happened and Mr Colosimo kept the bar open after November 14, bringing in staff from his other bars.

- NZPA