‘Disgrace’: Pub chain avoided penalty rates for 22 years    

Financial Review
Updated May 12, 2022

One of Queensland’s largest hospitality companies has had an “unconscionable” workplace deal axed that legally allowed it to avoid paying staff penalty rates for two decades.

In a scathing decision on Thursday, Fair Work commissioner Jennifer Hunt blasted Mantle Group’s long-expired agreement, which paid workers just the minimum hourly rate without any penalties for nights, weekends, overtime or public holidays, as “archaic” and “a disgrace”.   


Mantle operates The Squire’s Landing brewhouse in Sydney’s Circular Quay.

The agreement, first struck in 1999 under Mantle entity Staff Services Pty Ltd, covered half the company’s 300-strong workforce including at high-profile Brisbane venues such as its Pig’N’Whistle pub chain and upmarket CBD restaurant and bar Jimmy’s On The Mall. Mantle also operates key James Squire venues The Charming Squire in Brisbane and The Squire’s Landing at Sydney’s Circular Quay.

Mantle, owned by Godfrey Mantle, fought employee attempts to terminate the agreement for two years but finally dropped its objections after the case was picked up by the United Workers Union.

Commissioner Hunt said it was “difficult to understand” how an employer could have knowingly deprived a large number of employees of penalty rates for so many years.   




Godfrey Mantle is the owner of Mantle Group.

“The effect of this employer having the benefit of an agreement made in 1999, without the payment to employees of penalty rates, at least in the last decade, is a disgrace,” she said.

“It has resulted in this employer having an enormous competitive advantage over other employers who pay to employees penalty rates in accordance with the relevant awards or their own agreements which satisfy the better off overall test.”   

The Mantle deal allowed the company to pay just the award’s base hourly rate of at least $20.33 for all hours worked, avoiding penalty rates of at least $30.50 for night and Sunday work or $45.74 for public holidays.

One employee, a visa worker who said he had worked an extra 12 hours a week for Mantle for five years, alleged that the company had been banned from sponsoring migrant workers “because they are not paying right”.

Mantle initially objected to its casual employees’ attempts to terminate the agreement – and revert to the penalty rates in the award – by arguing they were not employees as they were not working shifts at the time.

However, it later dropped its objections and, while the case was afoot, sought to transfer employees over to a different agreement under a different name known as Hot Wok Food Makers.


Workers at Mantle’s Pig’N’Whistle British pub chain were covered by the agreement. Harrison Saragossi

The Hot Wok agreement, voted up by just four employees, included a document for employees to “volunteer” to work weekends, nights and public holidays at their ordinary hours – that is, without any penalty rates.

Commissioner Hunt said she was “troubled” by the document, saying it never would have passed the better off overall test as it only offered a minor premium to the minimum base rate.

“It is inconceivable to imagine a [level 3] employee voluntarily agreeing to work for the payment of $28.77 per hour on a public holiday when they would otherwise be entitled to $56.15 per hour.”

In its application to approve the Hot Work deal, Mantle’s human resources chief flagged the company could seek to rely on the Fair Work Act’s “exceptional circumstances” – a rarely used provision that allows agreements to be approved without passing the better off overall test.

The HR chief claimed Mantle needed a deal below the legal threshold as it was in a “short-term crisis” created by the pandemic’s effect on the industry and a “significant reduction in customers”.

Commissioner Hunt said the statement was “incredulous and extraordinary”.

“What is the reasonable strategy to deal with the short-term crisis? Permitting employees to sign away their entitlement to penalty rates because the employee asked for that? Saving Hot Wok Food Makers Pty Ltd from paying penalty rates required of other employers in the industry?”


The agreement covered workers at Mantle’s Brisbane bar and restaurant Jimmy’s On the Mall. 

The commissioner granted the application to terminate the 1999 agreement as she found “it provided no benefit to the employees at all”.

“In my view it is unconscionable this arrangement has continued in place without an application by the employer to terminate the agreement.”

She said it was necessary to shine a light on such “archaic arrangements” and blasted employers like Mantle who did not have the “intestinal fortitude” to terminate the deals themselves.

“Presently, it is incumbent upon employees, often casual employees, to make an application to the commission, to request termination of an agreement where an employer does not have the intestinal fortitude to recognise what a significant benefit it has had for a substantial period of time and make its own application.”

Maurice Blackburn principal Giri Sivaraman, who represented the employee Henry Thom who terminated the deal, said it was the worst case of a zombie agreement he had seen.

How the fkk are they able to get away with it for so long?

I hope they're made to pay back what they owe.

John Smith wrote on Jun 1^st, 2022 at 4:17pm:


Seems incredible that they could get away with this for over 20 years. Possibly due to high staff turnover and employing 457 visa holders instead of long term local staff.

Simple - No Zombie Agreements!  All agreements must contain clauses that properly allow adjustments to accord with wage rates and so forth.... no problem.

PTUBD (past their use by date) politicians had no trouble organising their fat retirement money to be indexed without question.... Howard's Way again, eh?  Why not workers with their 'no income will be adversely affected by Work Choices'?

We all knew THEN what that really meant.... this kind of ratbuggerery.

Where is Valkie for Comment?  That little ratbugger has a lot to answer for in the destruction of this nation, though at least he looks like The Living Dead now....

The ALP and NLP have Zombie Agreements with the Australian people for over a century.
What's the big deal?

John Smith wrote on Jun 1^st, 2022 at 4:17pm:


Just last week I was in my local bottle shop.  I was the only person there and got chatting to the guy on the till.  He told me he was about to go home after working 12 hours straight.  I said "yeah but the overtime helps hey?"

He looked at me strangely and said he did not get overtime.  I asked him if he was an employee or casual, he said he was an employee.

Looks to me like there are more than just that chain ripping people off.

This is the same business that marks the shelf with "Special 2 for $x"  then you get to the till and they attempt to charge the normal price.  Been that way without exception for 3 years.  Complaints mean nothing to them.

John Smith wrote on Jun 1^st, 2022 at 7:06pm:


Double Plus - told someone you were good at your metier....

Should be a criminal offence and carry a conviction listed as a scumbag offender, in a site where anyone can check on the bona fides of a prospective employer.  Red Flag - 'Listed Short-Change Conviction - you may apply for full details at blahblahblah@arseholes.gov.au'

For further actions including formal complaints, refer to our outanarsehole.gov.au page.  No fees apply.