Byrons burgers stiff their own employees

Diddums

Diddums

Diddums

Caporegime
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I'm sure many of us are aware of Byrons Burgers. They were targeted by immigration and loads of employees turned out to be illegal. So instead of pay the £700k fine they emailed their staff saying that they were going to release a new patty and the staff had to attend to learn about it. When they got there, the place was raided by the rozzers and 35 people were arrested, 25 of which have already been deported.

Protesters have boycotted the chain, some releasing hundreds of cockroaches in the branches and picketing outside the stores.

Now I'm not a fan of illegal immigration but I do find the way that they handled this appalling. They were more than happy to have cheap labour in the form of illegal staff but as soon as the proverbial hit the fan, they dropped all staff in the doodoo.

I don't know what other options they could've had apart from the fine, but what they did to these poor people is disgusting.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news...n-asks-protesters-to-respect-customers-safety
 
I'm a pretty tolerant, left-wing-leaning guy who believes in live and let live... but I simply don't understand the hate levelled at this company.

They're faced with mammoth fines (which could continue to go up) and possible criminal charges - they helped legitimate law-enforcement organisations enforce the law of the land.

By all means, campaign to have the law changed but attempting to ruin a business for obeying the law... really?!
 
[HB]Rugrat;29859007 said:
I'm a pretty tolerant, left-wing-leaning guy who believes in live and let live... but I simply don't understand the hate levelled at this company.

They're faced with mammoth fines (which could continue to go up) and possible criminal charges - they helped legitimate law-enforcement organisations enforce the law of the land.

By all means, campaign to have the law changed but attempting to ruin a business for obeying the law... really?!
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And this is exactly why I'm on the fence about it. I mean, I do find their actions shocking, but what other options could they have had?
 
Diddums said:
We don't know if they knew that the employees were illegal or not.
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The burger chain said it carried out the correct “right to work” checks on staff members but had been shown false or counterfeit documentation and will therefore not face civil penalty action, the Home Office said.
 
[HB]Rugrat;29859007 said:
I'm a pretty tolerant, left-wing-leaning guy who believes in live and let live... but I simply don't understand the hate levelled at this company.

They're faced with mammoth fines (which could continue to go up) and possible criminal charges - they helped legitimate law-enforcement organisations enforce the law of the land.

By all means, campaign to have the law changed but attempting to ruin a business for obeying the law... really?!
Click to expand...

Same, really. If they used counterfeit ID and lied on their applications I don't see how it's the fault of the company. A £20,000 fine per employee seems overly harsh, assuming they were still paying legal min wage, taxes/NI etc.
 
Diddums said:
We don't know if they knew that the employees were illegal or not.
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The only way an operation like this would have gone ahead is because the authorities knew it to be a problem and specifically targeted the restaurant. They don't routinely pluck random businesses out of the air for this sort of raid.

At that point they have the restaurant over a barrel - they were duped by fake documents and could have had the book thrown at them for refusing to co-operate and the staff would still have been deported anyway. It's a no-brainer - they had no choice.
 
We have a Byron in Leeds, really nice burgers.

I don't see it as a problem what they did. Illegal immigrants will go no matter what, they were just co-operating with the authorities. How is it any worse than the police raiding their flat at 3am?

If anything it was a more cost effective way to tackle the problem, good thinking really.
 
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Cosimo said:
Never seen one of there establishments here.
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Really? :confused:


They're everywhere!



//if the employees were in fact hired with the stores thinking that they were legal then I do wonder about their checks. My wife ran a branch of GBK for a few years and could spot a dodgy document a mile away. GBK's checks are fairly thorough though.
 
Sounds like they did the appropriate right-to-work checks and said documentation was found to be counterfeit. But I have no idea what checks employers are required to do other than photocopying it.
 
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As long as they are still fined, I think it is okay.

If they avoid the fine, then I think it sets the precedent that you can get away with using your employees for low wages (I wonder if they even paid minimum wage) benefiting financially only to get away with it by then betraying said employees.
 
You'd think they would check up on some as a matter of course, rather than just take ID on face value, to me it says they probably had a good idea, but did the legal minimum and didn't pry too much if they had a nice cheap willing work force.
 
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