‘More than 1500 migrant visa-holders working as cleaners at the Oaks Hotels and Resorts chain were ripped off by almost $2 million in a year and were only back-paid after the Fair Work Ombudsman (FWO) threatened legal action’, reported The Australian on 9 November 2016.
Following an initial investigation by the national workplace watchdog, Oaks Hotels and Resorts paid back $13,000 to 16 of its employees. However, FWO Natalie James said that “a few months later we found to our great disappointment that Housekeepers and Oaks had continued to purport to engage these workers as contractors”.
It was only after the FWO prepared to launch legal action that the company “finally agreed to step up and enter into an enforceable undertaking”.
The undertaking included a self-audit, which found that ‘1502 cleaners were underpaid $1.9 million in the 12 months to August this year’.
United Voice union national secretary Jo Schofield said that “the revelation that a major hotel chain had been cheating its cleaners on such a grand scale should be shocking to all Australians”.
[quote]“Oaks Hotels and Resorts, like 7-Eleven and Caltex, have joined a long list of employers who systematically underpay and exploit workers,’’ she stated. “These businesses, both large and small, have learned that overseas workers are especially easy to exploit. They know that if their exploitation is uncovered, the only downside is to pay the workers what they are due.
“It is good to see the Fair Work Ombudsman’s activity in this area. However, prevention is better than cure. It is much more difficult for unethical employers to get away with these illegal practices in unionised workplaces.”[/quote]
As Ms James explained, Oaks Hotels and Resorts ‘used a subsidiary, Housekeepers Pty Ltd, to engage migrant visa-holders in 40 hotels in three states as independent contractors, treating them as small business owners when, in fact, they were employees’.
Ms James also said that “the company made unlawful deductions from the cleaners’ pay for public liability insurance, ‘payroll tax’, chemicals and equipment, administration fees and uniforms”.
As The Australian pointed out, ‘taking into account underpayment of award hourly rates (using a ‘rate-per-room-cleaned’ model) and the unlawful deductions, many workers were underpaid about $200 a month’.
Oaks did not respond to The Australian’s request for comment.
[quote]”The revelation that a major hotel chain has been cheating its cleaners on such a grand scale should be shocking to all Australians but it is becoming commonplace,” added Ms Schofield. “What the cleaning and hospitality industries need is a change of culture. It is only through building real partnerships between unions and stakeholders that industry standards can be changed so ethical employers can win contracts and workers can have decent jobs.”[/quote]