He poured hot oil on his hand. He kicked him on his injured leg. He burned his arm with a hot spatula. One day, he punched him on the chest, another day he slapped him on the face. The perpetrator is the chef of a well known restaurant on the island of Corfu. The victim is a 19-year-old apprentice, a student at the chef school on the island, who worked in June and July in the restaurant’s kitchen.
The apprentice could not take anymore the torture and the bulling and made a denouncement to the local Labor Center, the Labor Inspectors’ Units and the local prosecutor. Previously, he had sought the coroner to confirm the injuries he had suffered under his brutal chef.
The 19-year-old apprentice was not the only one who suffered in the restaurant. However, others in the same position were afraid to make a formal complaint so as to not harm their professional future.
Physical and verbal abuse were not the only the apprentices suffered. they would work over 12-13 hours, wouldn’t allow to drink water “despite soaring temperatures in the kitchen” and had only one meal per day and thus in the afternoon. “In two months, I lost 12 kg,” the young man wrote in his complaint.
The whole complaint text on corfupress, in Greek.
According to the complaint filed by the apprentice, the chef, whose name has not been made public, have threatened his interns that he would “personally ruin their professional future” and “they would never find a job as chefs,” if they’d file a complaint.
The President of Hotel Workers Association of Corfu, Stamatis Pelais, made the complaint public, however, also he did not reveal the name of the restaurant or of the chef as it was “deleted” from the complaint copy.
The man in charge of the restaurant would reportedly tolerate the chef’s bulling and appalling behavior.
The Labor Center of Corfu demands for a series of measures to protect young people working in hotels and restaurants from the brutal behavior of their chiefs.
The local society is shocked and many ask for “name and shame” the chef and boycott the restaurant.
How is this allowed??? Why has this “chef” been allowed to bully and hurt people? Why are former students/employees so scared of this person? His name NEEDS to be published and he needs to see that just because he’s a chef and apparently thinks he has pull he cannot treat people like this!
People like him make the world such a horrible place!