Former employees from ReBurger Dunedin have spoken to Critic about illegal employment practices, a lack of training in food safety, inappropriate comments made by the owner, and a high-pressure work environment. The eight employees who spoke to Critic worked at the restaurant from the end of 2017 until the end of 2019.
ReBurger’s owner, Boris Reiber, started the business as a food truck in 2017. The burger chain now has restaurants in Dunedin, Mosgiel, and Wanaka.
The claims made to Critic range from specific allegations about food preparation to broader concerns about a stressful workplace. Six of the employees who spoke to Critic said they did not sign employment agreements for their jobs at ReBurger, which is in breach of employment law. None of the employees who spoke to Critic could recall receiving food safety training, which breaches the MPI’s basic Food Control Plan for restaurants.
The employees gave many examples of inappropriate comments that made them uncomfortable around Boris Reiber. They also claim that they felt pressured to work at ReBurger and struggled to keep up with the number of orders the restaurant received. Overall, the employees described the work environment as “toxic”.
Reiber denies most of these claims. He blames two of the employees who came forward, Amy* and Joy*, for “seek[ing] to get back at [him] with plainly exaggerated comments.”
“I wouldn't even question for a second if you asked me ‘which were the worst employees you ever had?’” he said. By contrast, David*, a former employee who spoke out independently from Amy and Joy, described them as “some of the best workers the place has ever seen.”
Amy and Joy were not alone in their problems with ReBurger and Reiber himself. Critic has been investigating since a news tip in early 2018 from Beth*. Critic cannot know whether all of these complaints are accurate, but the number of employees who spoke to us and the similarity of their complaints made it clear that further investigation was needed.
Illegal employment practices
Only two of the workers that spoke to Critic said that they signed employment agreements for their jobs at ReBurger. The rest of the workers received employment agreements by email a few months into their jobs or did not have employment agreements at all, both of which are illegal.
Dr Dawn Duncan, who lectures and researches in the field of labour law at the University of Otago, said “employees absolutely have to have written employment agreements. That’s a statutory minimum.” She said that emailing an employee a contract does not meet the employer’s obligations under the Employment Relations Act unless both parties have signed the employment agreement and the employer has it on file. Employment agreements mean that “employees know what their rights are and employers know what their obligations are,” she said. “It really clarifies what everyone in that employment relationship is obliged to be doing.”
The employees said, based on their observations, that Reiber would employ staff as casual workers, give them regular part-time hours, then stop giving them hours if they were working too slowly or business at ReBurger slowed down. Reiber denied this. “I'm not aware of any time where I have reduced someone's hours unlawfully,” he said. “If I have done so then it was in error.”
Joy said an employee working at the same time as her was obviously “not keeping up” in the kitchen. “But Boris just wouldn’t fire him,” she said. Instead, she said that Reiber just stopped putting the employee on the roster until he got the message.
David said that although Reiber never fired him, he has not been given hours at ReBurger since December last year. He worked regular part-time hours (between ten and fifty hours each week) but he was told that he was a casual employee.
Dr Duncan said that this is probably illegal. If someone works regular part-time hours over a period of months, the law views them as a part-time employee rather than a casual employee. So even if an employer claims to be able to stop giving someone hours because they are ‘casual’, the reality of the situation may be different. “Once you start having someone work for you routinely or regularly, then you stop being casual,” she said.
Lena* quit in mid-2019 over issues in the workplace. She wrote Reiber a message detailing her complaints, which included employees not getting their minimum required breaks and the lack of employment agreements.
“As I haven’t seen or signed a contract in the 10 months of working here I have no clue what my notice period is,” Lena wrote to Reiber on Facebook Messenger in a screenshot viewed by Critic. “Treating part time employees as casual employees is frustrating as it seems to be just a way to force employees into being flexible enough to suit ReBurger.” She believes, and wrote in the message, that this also allowed Reiber to avoid paying part-time employees their annual leave entitlements over the summer close-down period.
Lena said that, to the best of her knowledge, those issues have not been resolved. “I know current staff that have been employed for over a year without contracts,” she told Critic.
Reiber denies this. “All current employees are under contract.” He said that ReBurger’s “HR systems have certainly improved since we started.” None of the current employees at ReBurger wanted to talk to Critic about their workplace.
“What I would say to the employees is that they should get the Labour Inspector in,” said Dr Duncan. “The Labour Inspector is likely to talk to the employer and say these practices need to be improved.” To be clear, Critic does not know whether the current employment practices at ReBurger have improved or whether current employees have contracts. Reiber claims that every current employee is under contract.
No food safety training
None of the workers that spoke to Critic could recall being given training on any food hygiene. Reiber maintains that employees were trained by their team leaders.
All of the workers that spoke to Critic said that a silver metal container of uncooked chicken tenders in buttermilk would sit out on the bench in the kitchen for entire eight-hour shifts. The workers were certain that often, that room-temperature chicken would not be cooked within the four-hour period that MPI’s restaurant Food Control Plan requires.
Reiber denies that the chicken sits out in breach of any food safety obligations. “This stock [of chicken] is very rapidly depleted,” he said.
The kitchen staff wear gloves. “But the people there aren't trained well enough to know to be getting rid of their gloves all the time,” Olivia said. “So it would probably be safer if everyone just washed their hands well.”
David was particularly concerned about the lack of training in terms of allergens. “We never got trained this is what you say [if someone asks about gluten],” said David. He said that workers would sometimes say that they couldn’t guarantee the food was gluten-free, but there was no blanket instruction about what to say. “We definitely didn’t say that every time.”
Under MPI’s Food Control Plan for restaurants, staff need to be trained on managing allergens so that they can prepare safe food. Either a manager or another person on shift needs to be knowledgeable enough to talk to customers about what’s in their food.
David said he would make coeliac burgers when coeliac requests came through, because other workers had no training in cross-contamination. His brother is coeliac so he felt that he had some knowledge of the correct procedure. “The [other workers] just treated it like it was a gluten-free order, they didn’t know that you have to strip your gloves every time.”
“I definitely doubt that the [food safety] knowledge was consistent across all workers,” Lena said.
“Training was certainly given,” Boris said. “But as we aren't a huge franchise the systems are mainly taught by the team-leaders.”
Inappropriate comments from Reiber
“[The work environment] was really toxic,” said Beth. “It was so uncomfortable and awkward to bring up issues with Boris,” said Joy.
Employees from 2019 told Critic about a period when porn webpages appeared in the frequently visited pages on the work iPad. That iPad was used to view DeliverEasy orders and it was linked to a Google account that was used in all of Reiber’s restaurants. Joy reported this to Reiber, and he said “I'll check it out”.
Joy and Maddy*, who discovered the issue, said the history of sites on the Google account was cleared from time to time, but porn websites continued to appear in the history for weeks and remained on the ‘top sites’ home page of the iPad. Joy followed up and Reiber said that he would deal with it. Maddy said “it was just like he didn’t care at all.”
Reiber accepts that this happened but denies that it was his porn history. “I believe [there were] a total at the time of around 10 devices with approximately 35-40 ppl with direct access,” he said. “We conducted an investigation into this and the matter was dealt with internally.”
The employees who spoke to Critic were “disgusted” by the incident. They said that none of them saw any evidence of an investigation occurring. Amy said that, to the employees, it looked like “he did nothing about it.”
Joy claims that “any time I had an issue that I needed to talk to him about, I would tell him about it and he would say ‘oh yeah, I'll look into it.’ Months would pass and I'd ask, ‘did you look into that?’ and he would say no.”
Reiber publicly shamed an employee for private conversations about work in screenshots viewed by Critic. “guys I’m going to do this publicly because it annoys me so much”, he wrote in the ReBurger staff group chat. He then posted a screenshot of a private conversation between himself and the employee. The employee had requested time off from work to visit family overseas, six weeks in advance of the holiday.
Reiber posted the conversation in order to demonstrate that “this is NOT how anybody asks for a holiday”. He then wrote “just absolutely whatever [employee’s name].”
“It was heartbreaking because all [the employee] was saying was I'm so so sorry, I’ll never do this again,” Olivia* said. “Even with the strictest of contracts [six weeks] is usually enough to apply for time away,” she said. The flights had been booked by the employee’s girlfriend as a surprise. “But Boris was just super mad that the flights were already there.”
She stepped in, sending a message to Reiber in the group chat that called him out for the message. “This is a work place, let’s keep it professional,” she wrote. Reiber then wrote that he thought it was “pretty commonsense” that employees should give two months notice before applying for a holiday, “but I have been proven wrong.”
“I've had loads of shitty bosses, but I've never had a job where there weren’t clear-cut ways to do things,” Olivia said to Critic. “There should be systems in place if you want a day off.” There was no formal procedure at that point for requesting a holiday, she said. After Olivia’s message, Reiber created a formal procedure for staff to request holidays.
“As I remember the holiday was requested without the appropriate notice,” said Reiber. “I do believe I apologized to the person involved.”
Screenshots viewed by Critic show that a Dunedin social media personality, who was a fan of ReBurger, requested that Reiber name a burger after him in 2018. Reiber developed a burger with his catch-phrase but did not link the burger to the man’s Facebook page.
The man sent multiple messages to Reiber asking about the burger and why it wasn’t named after him. Reiber screenshotted the conversation, put it in the group chat, and said “honest to god I wanna smash this dude disability or not”. He also said “honestly this guy is a &$#*@€” (censorship by Reiber) and then described him as a “raving spamming megalomaniac” and “fucken nuts”.
“My colleagues know me to be a pretty calm guy, they should have known this was not a threat,” Reiber said on this incident. “My comment was taken out of frustration and was privately shared with my staff.”
“[Reiber] told me that he hired me to be the girl who works on till and who smiles and flirts with the customers and not to make burgers,” said Nina. “I wasn't allowed to make burgers [when Reiber was in the restaurant].” She described how other workers had taught her how to use the grill, but when Reiber came into the restaurant, she would switch back to the till.
“I was the ‘ReBurger girl’ at this point,” Nina said. “People would come up to me in town and say oh you’re the ReBurger girl.” Beth believes that Nina replaced her as the “token female” in the restaurant.
Amy describes that if Boris came in and she was frying on the grill, he would act surprised. “It was just little comments,” she said. “Like ‘oh my god, a chick on the grill!’”
Reiber does not recall telling a worker she was meant to be on the till or making comments about women working on the grill. “My respect is given on how the job is carried out, not on who carries it out,” he said. He also said that there is a policy at ReBurger that all workers learn how to work in every section of the restaurant and kitchen.
Reiber later updated his response to allegations of inappropriate comments. “I understand that's a very subjective point of view,” he said. “If I have offended anybody then I offer my sincere apologies.” He also said that he intends to “open this conversation [about jokes and comments in the workplace]” with his current employees.
In another incident shown in screenshots, a woman was tagged in the comments of a post that a job was available at ReBurger. Reiber went to her Instagram, screenshotted a photo of her wearing a bikini, and posted it in the group chat. The caption of the message was “ill say no more [laughing crying emoji]”, followed by “cracker :o”.
“I apologized in person to the person it referenced,” Reiber said. The woman was told about the incident by a friend who worked at ReBurger. “She laughed it off.” He said she continues to buy burgers from ReBurger.
Nina* posted a photo of herself wearing a men’s size large t-shirt, which was too big on her, in the group chat. “Any chance I can get a size small shirt?” she asked. Reiber told her to “just buy a belt and call it a dress.” He acknowledged to Critic that ReBurger has only ever had two sizes of t-shirt, but said that no one has ever requested other sizes.
Nina, Beth, and Joy all remember Nina requesting a smaller t-shirt. They provided Critic with a screenshot of that message. “It’s not good to have extra fabric around when you’re dealing with heat and oil and grills,” said Joy. They felt that the concerns of female workers were ignored by Reiber.
Olivia worked at a cafe near ReBurger during the same time period she was working at ReBurger. Reiber came into the cafe to order and she asked whether he wanted marshmallows with his mocha.
“He said ‘No, because I’m not a homo.’ It’s comments like that [that are the problem], they’re not something that ends up digging at me because I’m cis and straight,” she said. “But you still hear it and you just feel sick.” She speculated, in his defense, that some of the comments are ‘jokes’ which may have been appropriate when he was at university. Reiber denies that he made this comment.
On these inappropriate comments, Reiber said that he has a lesbian family member and a gay senior employee. Employees said that he responded in the same way when they challenged him. “Don’t assume from these comments that I am [sexist or homophobic],” he told Critic. He said that his workforce is “pretty much” gender balanced.
Female employees said they felt uncomfortable around Reiber in the workplace. Maddy said that “by the time I was there, [Reiber] definitely kept away from any women, just to avoid the conflict.” Nina agreed and said Reiber “would literally pretend I didn't exist or wasn’t there and just wouldn’t acknowledge me.”
Reiber denies that he ever treated female workers differently. “I totally refute the idea that I pretend people don’t exist,” he said.
Pressure to work
Amy once drove back from Queenstown to Dunedin, a four-hour drive, because Reiber insisted that she cover a shift. “He wasn't taking no for an answer,” she said. “He just said: this is what’s going to happen.”
Reiber denied that Amy refused to cover the shift. “If that employee had said no I would have totally respected that, no questions asked,” he said. “My style has always been no pressure.”
Nina felt pressured to work by Reiber. She once texted him after being in a “minor” car accident and said that she was not sure what time she would make it to work. He replied with “you don’t need to call insurance right away btw. just take details. that’s all you need”.
When she said that she could not drive her car after the accident, he said “thought it was minor…” Boris said he does not remember this incident. “But if it was indeed a minor accident why would she have needed to walk?” he said.
On busy days, the workers claimed that they would not get time to take their half-hour lunch break. “You're lucky if you even got your half an hour break,” said Nina. “Because if it got busy you had to go back to the kitchen and you would be in the back room trying to jam your burger in your face.” She said that for breaks, the workers would sit on upside down buckets in the storage cupboard because there was no space for chairs and no time to leave the restaurant.
David said that the lunch break is paid for workers on an eight-hour shift, but on busy shifts the pay would “just make up for the fact that you don’t actually get a break.” He said that there was a culture of not taking the missed breaks on busy days, because that would put pressure on other staff.
Reiber denied this. He said that all staff are given paid 30 minute breaks during their 8.5 hour shifts. “Sometimes breaks can be cut slightly short but I would expect them to recoup this time later in the shift,” he said.
Reiber told Critic that the restaurant “has a history of being too busy for its own good.”
When Reiber first started allowing online orders through the website, “he didn't tell anyone that it was live and suddenly you're inundated with orders,” claimed Beth. All of the workers who spoke to Critic found the pace of the online orders difficult to keep up with.
“I’d think oh my God we just got twenty orders in a minute” said Amy. “No way we can do that when we've got a line out the door and we've also got DeliverEasy orders spitting out.”
The workers claimed that they would often ask Reiber to increase the delay on the online orders so they could keep up. Amy said that their requests were usually ignored. She can only remember one time that Reiber stopped the online orders. Customers would be waiting for “ridiculously long periods of time,” she said.
Reiber said he has “never” refused an employee’s request to stop the online orders. “We really do try and limit the incoming orders as much as we can so the team can deal with them in the appropriate manner,” said Reiber. However, he acknowledged that sometimes the pace is so fast that they are unable to do so.