Employees Criticize Cheap Eats Chain, Alleging Unpaid Hours | Eater Montreal

"I learned that at least one L’Gros Luxe location in Vieux‑Longueuil was requiring employees to be on site up to one to one and a half hours before their shift without pay: former busboy Antoine Febres‑Gagné said he often waited that long, and when he raised it a manager told him “it’s legal, it’s normal, that’s just the restaurant industry.” Section 57.1 of Quebec’s labour code, Les Normes du Travail, states employees must be paid while required to be at the workplace, and Febres‑Gagné provided recordings of a phone call with co‑owner Gérôme Paquette in which Paquette described the unpaid waiting time as “a type of agreement between the employee and the employer” and said “La loi est faite pour être brisée.” Chain owner Alex Bastide told Radio‑Canada he was unaware the practice was illegal, said he would end it and repay Febres‑Gagné, and characterized it as a management‑level mistake, but one current employee (whose identity was hidden) said managers told her those orders had come from the highest levels of the company. The investigation also reported that staff were sometimes asked to work shifts under the three‑hour legal minimum (which would require three hours' pay if sent home early), an issue Bastide doubted, and Radio‑Canada found similar unpaid‑waiting claims at other unnamed restaurants." - Tim Forster