Buenos Aires, November 27 (NA) – The court ruling that has put the renowned restaurant Piegari on the brink of closure has once again brought the debate over working conditions in the gastronomic sector to the forefront. According to an investigation by the Argentine News Agency (Agencia Noticias Argentinas), in this context, the statements made in 2022 by the restaurateur Roberto García Moritán, owner of restaurants like La Mar and Tanta, have resurfaced. He had publicly admitted to paying salaries outside of the collective agreement and below the Basic Basket. The Piegari company, located in the La Recova area, faces a conviction that obligates it to pay 200 million pesos for the dismissal of a waiter that occurred in 2020, according to a ruling by labor judge Lucrecia Pedrini. The sentence also included the freezing of the company's bank accounts, jeopardizing the payment of salaries and obligations to suppliers. Alberto Chinkies, the owner of the restaurant, explained that the worker had 25 years of seniority and was dismissed for abandonment of work, after failing to report during the pandemic when the establishment resumed activity through delivery and take-away. The employee, for his part, claimed that he considered himself dismissed due to lack of payment, in a context in which, according to the businessman, there may have been delays despite the ATP program. The case has been appealed and is still to be resolved in the National Chamber of Labor, but the situation once again exposes the structural tension between the gastronomic sector, labor regulations, and operating costs. Roberto García Moritán and his controversial phrase from 2022 In November 2022, in a television interview, Roberto García Moritán generated strong rejection when he revealed that the average salaries he paid in his restaurants were around $70,000, a figure that represented half of the Basic Total Basket at that time, calculated by INDEC at $128,214 for a typical family. The controversy grew when, in response to the panel's inquiry, Moritán acknowledged that part of his employees' income came from undeclared tips, which implied that the declared formal salary was even lower. At that time, the UTHGRA agreement established basic salaries between $97,000 and $130,000, considerably higher amounts than those reported by the legislator. In this situation, labor lawyer León Piasek stated at the time that Moritán was "outside the salary scale" and that his employees had "a lot to claim".
