Company financial distress: This popular GTA restaurant chain allegedly withheld wages from international students and refugees

A well-known Caribbean restaurant chain is accused of owing almost $95,000 to a group of GTA workers that it allegedly failed to pay minimum wage — and, in some cases, did not pay at all.

 

Twelve former employees allege Sunrise Caribbean repeatedly issued bounced or incomplete paycheques to its cashiers, servers and chefs, some of whom have now been out of pocket for almost a year. Most of them are refugee claimants or international students, the labour advocates representing them say.

 

One of those workers, Gurman Brar, is owed more than $19,000, according to an internal labour ministry ruling obtained by the Star. In August, the ministry found Sunrise failed to pay him minimum wage, overtime or provide appropriate rest periods during his year working at the company.

 

The Star reviewed almost 200 pages of WhatsApp conversations and other documentation gathered by a dozen former Sunrise employees. The documents include photographs of bounced cheques from numbered companies associated with the restaurant chain.

 

The company appears to communicate with its workers mainly through WhatsApp, issuing shift details and job instructions over the messaging platform. Texts reviewed by the Star show some workers complaining they were deleted from Sunrise group chats after raising pay issues.

Brar, who quit after not getting paid for two months, was initially the only Sunrise employee to file a claim with the province. Eleven of his former colleagues have now also filed claims. The labour ministry has not yet issued rulings in those cases.

 

Last month, Sunrise’s president Marcus Davenport launched an appeal of Brar’s successful claim. However, it is unclear when the appeal will proceed due to issues with Sunrise’s application, labour board records show.

 

The company did not respond to multiple requests for comment. Sunrise describes itself online as a “franchise network” with 25 locations across southern Ontario.

 

Taofeek Olajide said he started working at Sunrise in December 2023 for $12 an hour. He had just arrived in Toronto from Nigeria. As it was his first job in Canada, Olajide wasn’t aware the rate was below minimum wage, he told the Star.

 

Olajide said he worked up to 12 hours a day for almost 10 weeks. Text exchanges show Olajide repeatedly requesting his wages and a day off to go to the doctor — until mid-February, when the chat members were abruptly instructed to leave the WhatsApp group.

 

By that point, Olajide had received just $2,300 for more than two months’ work, he alleges.

 

The Toronto-based Workers’ Action Centre (WAC), which is assisting the group of Sunrise workers, calculates that Olajide is owed over $10,000 in unpaid entitlements.

 

Former employees first contacted Sunrise in May to ask the company to pay their wages and met with the company in August, said WAC’s co-ordinator for workers’ rights Ella Bedard.

 

Sunrise initially promised to resolve the matter, blaming the wage issues on financial distress at the company, according to Bedard.

 

Sunrise has since stopped communicating with the group, she said.

 

After Brar won his case this summer, the ministry issued orders to pay to four numbered corporations it deemed to be Sunrise.

 

In mid-November, Sunrise’s president Marcus Davenport launched an appeal of Brar’s successful claim, Ontario Labour Relations Board records show.

 

Two properties owned by Marcus Davenport were put on the market earlier this year, and are currently listed at $1 million and $3.4 million respectively.

 

In an interview with the Star, Brar — who came to Canada as a student from India — described his experience at Sunrise as “painful,” forcing him to rely on family and friends as he struggled to pay tuition and rent.

 

“We are not slaves,” he said. “We should get our pay on time.”

 

Brar was initially the only worker in the group to file a ministry complaint. The others had hoped directly engaging with Sunrise would be more effective, since the government is often slow to recover unpaid wages, said Bedard.

 

However, with no resolution on the horizon, Brar’s former colleagues have now also filed claims against Sunrise.

 

Sunrise locations have been subject to at least 17 successful employment standards claims from other workers since 2019, ministry data shows.

 

Neither Sunrise nor the labour ministry would comment on how much money was found owing to those workers, or how much of that money has been recouped on behalf of claimants.

 

The labour ministry said it could not provide those details due to an “ongoing” investigation into Sunrise.

 

 

 

 

This article was first reported by The Star