We all need to be a bit more sceptical about our local pubs. We've always understood that people drank too much and got into fights but now there is a serious shift in pub culture, from places celebrated as warm and inclusive (except for Aboriginal Australians, except for women) to sites of miserable exploitation of staff and patrons.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Late last week, we discovered Merivale, owned by the Hemmes family and a major operator of pubs,
bars, restaurants and corporate venues, had cancelled its annual staff party. There was no set date but management, which denied the cancellation, had been talking up the event as recently as December, according to staff. News of the cancellation came on the same day as the Fair Work Commission ruled Merivale must start paying its 3000-strong workforce under the hospitality award from March. The company, led by chief executive Justin Hemmes, had been underpaying staff for years. In a submission to the commission, Merivale’s human resources manager, Kate Tones, wrote: “Merivale will need to consider the viability of business practices which while viable under the EBA, may not be viable under the modern award.”
Translation: we want to ensure we keep boosting profitability at the cost of our workers.
We also discovered last week that the manager of a bar in Perth sent a message to female staff insisting they wear new, low-cut tops. He wrote: “If you don’t feel comfortable you are welcome to find employment elsewhere."
Translation: I alone will decide what women should wear
to work without consulting them. He had to back down pronto.
The ABC reported last week that Mitchell McNamee, the owner of Rorkes Beer, Wine and Food, in central Darwin, allegedly wrote to a senior staff member saying, "I told you no blacks in my f***ing bar”. A number of staff have left the venue claiming they haven’t been paid for weeks.
Translation: Nothing that’s printable here.
Three public incidents in the space of eight days and these are just the ones we know about. Seriously, we should be able to pop in to our local and expect that both staff and customers are being treated fairly.
The moral bankruptcy of some in the hotel industry, mired as it is in problem drinking, problem gambling and violence, is underscored by its relationship to poker machines. For the first time, consumer losses on poker machines in pubs are growing at more than three times the rate of clubs nationally and pub losses now exceed $6 billion nationally. Pub managements develop ruthless loyalty schemes; and regulars find it difficult to resist particularly since pubs are likely to open for the maximum hours possible, says Stephen Mayne of the Alliance for Gambling Reform. Much of the serious impact on customers never makes the news, except for the list of most violent venues, where the Hemmes-owned Ivy makes an appearance.
Pubs are places which work to make people feel included. Operators rely on that vibe and the culture is about pretending you are part of the family. Madeline Lucre, a young Hemmes whistleblower who eventually joined her union United Voice, had been trying to get breaks scheduled during eight hour shifts but, when she asked for one, was told to eat some bread and stop complaining. She found it hard to talk to her supervisor about working conditions.
“[Employers] create a culture where people feel like they can’t complain. We are all such good mates and we all get on . . . you go out drinking with your bosses after work and it’s hard to raise those issues because we are quite close.
“If you do, it makes you feel a bit guilty.”
She became an unofficial union organiser towards the end of her time at Merivale and is now working for United Voice, where she deals with those experiencing exploitative management practice. “The truth is if you make too much of a big deal you won’t get shifts the next week, that is the nature of being casual.”
This is an industry which is not as tightly controlled as it should be – and it’s now exploiting our young, so many of whom don’t belong to unions and don’t have the right protections.
Diane Kirkby and Chris McConville cowrote the iconic social history The Australian Pub with Tanja Luckins. McConville reminds me that pubs have always been strictly controlled through liquor licensing laws. But the culture of the Australian hotel industry has benefited from boundaries getting blurred. “Long hours, difficult situations, late at night, serving the public in a domestic setting and the majority of staff are casuals, so it has all the problems of the gig economy.” Nearly no protections.
Kirkby, a professor of both law and humanities at UTS and La Trobe, remembers reading Craig McGregor's Profile of Australia when he claimed Australian pubs were the most egalitarian places to be. She says he was wrong then, wrong now.
“Nothing changes in pubs,” she says, reminding me that women have always been exploited in pubs. "Remember the topless barmaids of the 1970s?"
But one aspect has changed significantly - a dramatic decline in workers who are union members.
“The power has shifted to the employer away from workers, away from unions. Workers should never have to negotiate for their rights one-on–one. You should never have to negotiate with the people you drink with.”
The people who run pubs are not your family and they are not your friends. Some pub owners are now getting away with wage theft. They don’t have your best interests at heart, whether you are a customer or a staff member, no matter what they say.
Jenna Price is an academic at the University of Technology Sydney.
