Melbourne Grill'd worker Kahlani Pyrah reinstated

A young worker who was sacked after asking to be paid the legal minimum for hospitality workers, today was reinstated after an interim ruling by the Federal Circuit Court. Kahlani Pyrah, a member of United Voice and Socialist Alternative, was told on 10 July that her employment with burger franchise Grill’d was terminated. Kahlani was sacked less than a week before she was due to appear at the Fair Work Commission to put the Grill’d workers’ case. The Fair Work hearing will go ahead in Melbourne on Thursday afternoon.

Prior to her reinstatement, Kahlani spoke to Red Flag industrial organiser Jerome Small about the Grill’d campaign.

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How did you and your fellow Grill’d workers start organising?

We've always been talking about how low our pay is, how hard we work for it, and the fact that we were not getting overtime – even if we're there until 2am – or penalty rates on the weekends.

But it wasn't until one of our friends got fired for drinking a Gatorade – something so small and it was just so easy for them to toss him aside! That made everyone really angry, and because everyone knows I’m a member of Socialist Alternative, and a member of the union [United Voice], people came to me to ask if there was anything we could do about it.

So I started looking into our agreement, what our rights were, unfair dismissal, all that kind of stuff. I found out not only was he unfairly dismissed, but we were getting paid way below the minimum wage. Our agreement was from the WorkChoices era and way past its nominal expiry date, so we could apply to terminate it and get paid the minimum award wages.

I organised a meeting and a bunch of us came along and talked about what we wanted to do. Getting everyone together from the start is really what drove us to being so strong and achieving the things we're up to now.

What were the results from that first little bit of agitation?

After the first meeting, we decided we'd go to the bosses, tell them what we’d found out and give them a list of our demands. We wanted our friend’s job back, we want to get paid the award minimum, we want penalty rates, overtime rates – we just want our basic rights to be respected. Another thing we found out was that we were on these traineeships that were never registered, and none of us had received any training under them. So we were asking for back payments for the money that we'd been underpaid due to all of that as well.

They seemed to agree, they seemed to listen. And we thought okay, great, everything is going to be sorted out. Our friend got his job back, which is amazing in itself. Then a few of us got some back payments, though not everyone. They wouldn't tell us how they calculated the back payments, and then the day came and went that we'd been promised the pay rises, we kept waiting and waiting and nothing seemed to happen after that.

I guess our mistake was that we trusted the boss without putting any more pressure on them to act. They told us: “Yeah, we'll give you all these things, just don't terminate the agreement”. And we're like: “Yeah sure, definitely”. That was a mistake.

What happened next?

I just kept trying to push them to tell us when they would be giving us the pay rises they promised us and asking about when everyone else would be back paid. I was the one who was messaging them all the time. They kept saying “Soon”, and kept trying to avoid my questions. By the middle of June they just stopped responding altogether.

And sometime around then, all of a sudden a bullying complaint materialised?

Yeah, I had been messaging them about our pay, and telling them that we can terminate the agreement if our conditions aren't better off than the award. Then a couple of days later I get this bullying complaint lodged against me which is completely ridiculous. We knew exactly what was going on. So my friends and I decided we would send in the paperwork to terminate the agreement.

Since that time a couple of things have happened. You were sacked, the union launched a court case to get your job back, and there’s been a lot of attention in the media. How would you describe the last week with all that going on?

It's been crazy, but it's also been really amazing and really inspiring. I've been fired for standing up for my rights. But instead of being totally freaked out about all of that and wanting to just give up, people at Grill'd are still standing up for me and their workplace rights. They inspire me so much!

And all of this media stuff has struck such a chord because this is happening to so many others, whether it’s them or people they know. I've been completely inundated with messages from people who are like: “This is happening to us, what can we do, we want to do something!” And the solidarity of course from other unions and other young workers everywhere has just been incredible. The best thing that this could lead to is more young workers being empowered to stand up for their rights as well.

You mentioned near the start that you're a member of Socialist Alternative, why is that important in this story?

I guess I wouldn't have been brave enough to do any of this if I didn't have the politics of being a socialist. Those politics are working class politics, saying that the workers can actually change the world. And even on such a tiny level in a small hospitality place, a small bunch of young students and workers can actually make a really big difference. That's the kind of politics that pushed me to keep this going and stand by what we've been doing and wanting it to spread.

Obviously socialists have often played a prominent role in workers’ struggles.

Yeah I got reminded of this when the Maritime Union of Australia wrote a letter about me, and they mentioned that I’m “part of a strong socialist movement, something the MUA has always prided itself on”. My dad is an MUA member, so it’s great to continue that tradition.

A lot of workers are looking at what's happening. What would your advice be to them, the top three things to do to start changing their situation?

Can I give more than three? I think first of all start finding out about your rights, and start talking to your workmates about what you can do. Start having meetings. Take action, collectively. Make sure you're involving as many people as you can every step of the way and being creative about it, having crazy ideas, just seeing how far you can get with it. Even if you fail, going through that experience of standing up, supporting one another, and solidarity, are lessons like no other – it’s the most important part. Don’t give up!

Of course joining your union is crucial. The solidarity and backing of tens of thousands of other workers who want to create change can really be a make or break, so push your union to back you up and help spread your message! And, well, socialist politics can give you an excellent guide on how to get things done.

If there's one thing I've learned from what's happened at Grill'd, it’s that even taking the smallest of steps forward has the potential to turn into something really amazing and could inspire so many others to fight for the things we all deserve. If we can do it, anyone can!