Some staff are owed $3000+ in wages.
Furious Max Brenner workers have come out saying that the company is “toxic” after being let go without wages or superannuation.
In an in-depth investigation completed by news.com.au, many workers from now-closed stores have come forward with stories of food hygiene breaches, severely overpriced goods, and treating their staff “like garbage”.
According to one store supervisor who contacted news.com.au, she is fighting to receive over $3000 worth of wages from the last month and over a YEARS worth of superannuation which was never paid. Despite the company writing that superannuation had been paid on her payslip, it took a phone call to head office for the worker to find out she hadn’t been paid a cent.
“When I figured that out and inquired I was told by certain higher-up employees, that they were told to keep it a secret that no one is being paid their super,” the worker told news.com.au.
“Once I inquired I was sent an email from payroll where they apologised and promised to get back to me with the dates on which my super would be paid. They never got back to me.”
Furthermore, news.com.au reports that many staff haven’t been paid since September 5th and there is a very real worry that the staff will never see their wages from the collapsing company. According to the staff member, workers are only receiving stock emails from the administrators regarding their pay.
On top of this, the staff members in the now defunct stores only found out about the stores closures through media reports, and were told that they had to work until closure or forfeit a month’s pay.
This failure to pay staff legally, as well as a myriad of other issues, made the financial issues of the failing company obvious to staff around seven months before its collapse.
The same staff member detailed how customers would be paying premium price for Coles brand ice cream when their suppliers froze accounts.
“The ice cream and milk order accounts have been frozen multiple times because the company couldn’t pay their debts. This meant that we did not receive milk or ice cream and supervisors had to take hundreds of dollars of petty cash out the till and walk to Coles to buy enough to get us through the day. Sometimes we have to buy ice cream and customers are still paying full price for that.”
It was also revealed that the company ignored massive health violations, including storing ingredients at the wrong temperature, making them unsafe for sale.
You can read news.com.au’s full investigation here.
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Written by Kate Stevens
Images: Getty
