The Fair Work Ombudsman has secured a total of $332,964 in penalties in court in response to underpayment of cleaners at Etihad Stadium (now Marvel Stadium) in Melbourne’s Docklands.
The penalties are the result of an investigation and legal action by the Fair Work Ombudsman in response to 25 stadium cleaners being underpaid a total of $99,637 between February and June 2017 as a result of being paid unlawfully low flat rates.
The FWO investigated after receiving an underpayment allegation through its online anonymous tip-off tool, with Fair Work Inspectors making an unannounced late-night visit to Etihad Stadium after a 2017 AFL match to speak with cleaners and gather evidence.
The Federal Circuit and Family Court has now imposed penalties against the stadium’s principal cleaning contractor, a sub-contractor and two individual company directors:
- Quayclean Australia Pty Ltd, a national cleaning company that holds the principal contract to provide cleaning services at the stadium, has been penalised $174,420.
- Ranvel Pty Ltd, a Melbourne-based company formerly subcontracted by Quayclean to provide some of the cleaning services at the stadium, has been penalised $114,480.
- Indika Udara Lokubalasuriya, owner-director of Ranvel, has been penalised $15,552.
- Harjot Singh, who was a director of Melbourne-based company Lionheart Workforce Pty Ltd (which entered liquidation in September 2019 and was deregistered in October 2020), which was also formerly subcontracted by Quayclean to provide some cleaning services at the stadium, has been penalised $28,512.
The affected cleaners have been back-paid in full.
Acting Fair Work Ombudsman Kristen Hannah said the regulator was committed to taking action to address the exploitation of vulnerable workers in supply chains in high-risk industries such as cleaning.
“We welcome the substantial penalties in this case. We conduct thorough investigations of supply chains to gather the evidence we need and we are prepared to take action against multiple levels of supply chains for non-compliant conduct,” Ms Hannah said.
“Workers employed in the cleaning sector are low-paid, often vulnerable migrant workers with limited awareness of their workplace rights. We treat deliberate underpayments of such workers particularly seriously.
“Any employees with concerns about their pay or entitlements should contact the FWO for free assistance.”
The investigation found the 25 affected Etihad Stadium cleaners were underpaid entitlements under the Cleaning Services Award 2010, such as minimum ordinary hourly rates, casual loadings, penalty rates and overtime.
Lionheart and Mr Singh paid 11 cleaners flat hourly rates ranging from $7 to $23, resulting in total underpayments of $75,138.26. (Lionheart could not be pursued in court because it went into liquidation in September 2019).
Ranvel and Mr Lokubalasuriya paid 14 cleaners a flat rate of $16 per hour, resulting in total underpayments of $24,498.80.
Quayclean was involved as an accessory in most of the underpayment contraventions because the subcontract amounts it paid Ranvel and Lionheart were not sufficient to enable the companies to provide the relevant cleaning services whilst meeting employees’ minimum Award entitlements.
Quayclean responds to FWO decision
Quayclean Australia said it accepts the ruling from the Fair Work Ombudsman and regretted sub-contracted labour was found to be underpaid, with CEO Mark Piwkowski stating the company had since completed a transformation of its business operations.
“The investigation made us realise that if our business is to be relevant and sustainable, our only path was to build our own fully employed team across the country,” said Piwkowski.
“Within days of the investigation in September 2017, Quayclean moved to expand its already employed workforce to 100 per cent employed with our first challenge being the 2018 Gold Coast Commonwealth Games where 1200 staff were employed directly to deliver the games. We no longer engage sub-contractors because of the risk of underpayment that cannot be controlled.
“Today, Quayclean employs over 5,100 full-time, permanent part-time and casual employees who are all employed under the Modern Award Cleaning,” he said.
“We pride ourselves on being an employer of choice and an industry leader in workplace compliance.
“Our transformational actions since 2017 to build a productive workforce has paid off with strong staff engagement, excellent customer satisfaction, extensive training programs and a company culture driven by vision and purpose,” said Piwkowski.
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