Department store chain Myer’s cleaning services contractor, Pioneer Personnel and the company’s director are facing legal charges and will have to pay maximum penalties of up to $61,200 in total for allegedly underpaying employees.
The Fair Work Ombudsman has launched legal action against the Melbourne-based cleaning services company for underpaying nine employees who cleaned Myer stores at Chadstone, Doncaster and the CBD in Melbourne; the CBD in Hobart and Maroochydore on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast in 2014.
Pioneer Personnel is facing maximum penalties of up to $51,000 per contravention while company director Aaron Leigh Dickinson will face penalties of up to $10,200 per contravention.
The allegedly underpaid employees include a number of migrant workers from non-English speaking backgrounds.
The Fair Work Ombudsman has also sought court orders requiring Pioneer Personnel to commission professional external audits of its compliance with workplace laws and to rectify any further underpayments identified across its extensive national workforce.
The Fair Work Ombudsman alleges Pioneer Personnel underpaid the nine employees more than $18,000 between April and November 2014.
The employees were allegedly variously underpaid minimum engagement period pay, part-time loading, public holiday pay, annual leave entitlements, broken shift allowances, overtime rates, Saturday penalty rates and shift penalty rates they were entitled to under the Cleaning Services Award.
Fair Work ombudsman Natalie James says a decision was made to commence legal action because Pioneer Personnel had previously been put on notice and because of concerns that the company’s alleged non-compliance issues potentially affect a large number of workers, including many vulnerable workers.
The agency stated it has held a number of meetings with Myer and expressed ongoing concerns about the employees of cleaning contractors engaged by the department store chain.
Myer has been invited to enter into a compliance partnership with the Fair Work Ombudsman to address issues of non-compliance within its supply chain, however the company has so far declined that invitation, the agency stated.
James said her agency is committed to working with major national employers to help them put processes in place to ensure all workers in their workplaces, including those employed by contractors, are not being exploited.
“Outsourcing is a legitimate business arrangement – but in my experience, in highly competitive markets for low-skilled work, it also increases the risk that workers will be underpaid, sometimes quite deliberately,” she said.
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