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CLEANING COMPANY HIT WITH RECORD $500K IN PENALTIES FOR EXPLOITING OVERSEAS WORKERS

By Administrator | 12 December 2017

The “deliberate”, “repeated” and “systemic” exploitation of three overseas workers has resulted in a West Australian cleaning company, including its husband and wife operators, being hit with nearly $511,000 in penalties for Fair Work breaches.   

Catherine Paino-Povey, Mark Povey and their company– Commercial and Residential Cleaning Group Pty Ltd – were fined $77,400, $72,240 and $361,200 respectively in the Federal Circuit Court after proceedings were brought against them by the Fair Work Ombudsman.

The penalties are the highest penalties secured by the Ombudsman in WA and the third highest secured by it nationally.

The Ombudsman had previously secured penalties totalling $343,860 in 2013 against Paino-Povey and another cleaning company she operated with her husband for deliberately exploiting local and overseas workers in Perth.

In the most recent case, Judge Antoni Lucev criticised the husband and wife operators, saying they were jointly responsible for managing the operations of both Commercial and Residential Cleaning Group and the company penalised in 2013 and that the exploitation of workers in both cases “demonstrate similar circumstances and a similar mode of operation”.

The three overseas workers exploited in the most recent case were all Taiwanese women in Australia on 417 working holiday visas. Read more

James Harkness - Dynamic Business - 8 Dec 2017

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