Restaurant hiring policies not discriminatory, says La Fondue owner

Netizens raised a furore after Mr Roginald Santos Oloresisimo, a Filipino chef at Swiss restaurant, La Fondue,  posted several discriminatory job ads on various job sites, requesting a "Filipino female" for a manager's position on Sept 18, and for a Filipino chef to join an "all Filipino team" earlier this month. 

Get the full story from The Straits Times.

After the online uproar, the employer and owner of La Fondue restaurant, Mr Ravinder Pal, clarified that the restaurant's employment practices were not discriminatory.

He posted a statement on Facebook that said 'our hiring practices are strictly in accordance with MOM regulations'.

Mr Ravinder also told The Straits Times Mr Oloresisimo recently returned to the Philippines to "see the birth of his child". He has not  been fired, nor was he unhappy over the recent incidents.

The restaurant has four other employees who are Singaporean - two directors, one accountant and one administrator. It also employs 1 Filipina waitress on an S Pass, as well as Mr Oloresisimo, who is here on an Employment Pass.

Here is Mr Ravinder's Facebook post in full:

Dear All

I represent the management and majority shareholders of the entity known as “La Fondue”. Apart from F&B, we have interests in other businesses, including IT, where we have established offices in numerous countries and employ staff... from a variety of backgrounds. 

On behalf of La Fondue, I would like to extend our sincerest apologies to everyone. 

Our hiring practices are strictly in accordance with MOM regulations. Even if the use of such discriminatory hiring practices do not fall foul of the law (which they clearly do), no company, let alone ours, would have the luxury of hiring foreigners from a single demographic, given the MOM restrictions on the hiring of foreign labour and all associated difficulties.

A typical job ad that we post from time to time on online employment portals (JobsDB and the like) is typically worded along the following lines: 

Locals or PRs preferred 

Must be Singapore Citizen, PR or Dependent Pass Holder

This can easily be verified if one were to type in relevant keywords on any search engine (for example, “La Fondue Singapore” + “jobs”).

We also advertise in our own website: https://www.lafondue.com.sg/careers.html. The job ads posted on our website and job portals such as JobsDB are a far cry from the one that one of our employees had posted recently on GumTree without the management’s knowledge and indeed approval. This person did not have any authority whatsoever to post an ad, let alone interview and recruit staff. We will certainly be taking stern action and reprimanding the staff member involved. 

We hope that we have clarified all doubts pertaining to this matter. 

Once again, we do apologise for this debacle and will ensure that this doesn’t happen again. 

PS: Incidentally, we are actually looking for a Singaporean or PR Sous Chef. If you are reading this, please feel free to contact us!

Regards,
Ravinder Pal CEO