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Staff Threatened After Speaking Out (Read 321 times)
whiteknight
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Staff Threatened After Speaking Out
Jul 9th, 2019 at 6:32am
 
Staff at luxury hotel group threatened after speaking out about exploitation   Sad 

July 9, 2019
The Age


Staff at the luxury Escarpment Group of Blue Mountains hotels have been warned against talking to the media or they will face the threat of legal action and fines following the Herald's exposure of exploitation of visa workers.   Sad

The Department of Home Affairs and the Fair Work Ombudsman have confirmed they are investigating the hotel group after a Herald investigation found it is clawing back wages from migrant workers through overpriced accommodation and unpaid overtime, leaving them with little more than $300 a week in their pockets.


The investigation revealed the Escarpment Group of hotels, which includes Lilianfels and Echoes in Katoomba, the Hydro Majestic in Medlow Bath, the Parklands Country Garden and Lodges in Blackheath, and the Convent Hunter Valley, deducts $480 a week from their wages for half a small bedroom which they share with another worker.

Those who ask to move out to find their own accommodation are threatened with the cancellation of their internship contract and visas which the Escarpment Group sponsors.


Arindam Biswas, from Kolkata, India, who was a desk clerk at the Hydro Majestic until last month, said staff at the hotel had been threatened with legal action and fines if they spoke to the media following the publication of the Herald's investigation on Sunday.

"I am concerned about the staff because they are trying to threaten to counter-sue them for revealing anything else to the media," he said. "The management has said the staff have signed a contract that says they cannot speak to the media."

The Escarpment Group denied the claims and allegations it was "underpaying or exploiting" any of its employees or interns, including those on 407 visas. It said it was co-operating with the investigations by the Department of Home Affairs and the Fair Work Ombudsman "and believes that it has acted in accordance with the applicable industrial laws".

The Fair Work Ombudsman has raided two Escarpment hotel sites, including one in Katoomba, but declined to comment further on its investigation. The Department of Home Affairs says it “takes any allegations of misuse of a visa or exploitation of a visa holder seriously”.

More than 23 former and current staff at the Escarpment Group contacted the Herald on Sunday and Monday to share their stories, providing more evidence of false time sheets and pay records.

The Herald has now received complaints from at least 30 former and current staff who echo each other's complaints about being asked to sign false time sheets that show they worked 38 hours a week when their hand-written time sheets show they actually worked up to 50 hours or so. Overtime is unpaid.   Sad

The former Blue Mountains mayor Jim Angel said on Monday he had also received many similar reports.

Pay slips do not show $960 fortnightly deduction from wages for their accommodation and three meals a day. Other workers pay $250 per night for accommodation without food.

"They keep buying houses and make their workers stay there and pay $250 [without meals] and $480 per week [with meals]," one former Hydro Majestic visa worker said on Monday.


The Escarpment Group bought a nine-bedroom heritage property at the bottom of Katoomba Street for $2.25 million in 2011 and paid $1.237 million for a six-bedroom house house in Lurline Street in 2017.

The company also owns another house in Lurline St, bought for $930,000 last year, and a four-bedroom house in Waratah Street which cost $678,000 earlier this year.

The company has two other properties in Medlow Bath - one purchased for $620,000 in 2015 and the other for $735,000 last year.

Federal Labor MP for Macquarie Susan Templeman said it was important the allegations of exploitation were properly investigated by Fair Work and the Department of Home Affairs.

"These are serious allegations and I will be watching very closely for the outcome of these investigations," she said.

The ACTU President, Michele O’Neil, said labour migration laws are an "invitation to abuse by unscrupulous employers.”   Sad

“When people are paid below the legal minimum, forced to live where their employer chooses and made to pay exorbitant rent or face sacking and deportation, that’s extreme exploitation," she said.

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Grappler Truth Teller Feller
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Re: Staff Threatened After Speaking Out
Reply #1 - Jul 9th, 2019 at 7:28am
 
Hmmm - Usual Suspect names at the top ....

(part of the wars of national inferiority complex against the West - take 'em any way you can)...
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PZ547
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Re: Staff Threatened After Speaking Out
Reply #2 - Jul 9th, 2019 at 9:19am
 
'Labour migration laws'


right there

right there


because there aren't tens of thousands of generations-deep Aussies looking for work, huh, ACTU president Michelle O'Neil ?

all those Aussies stuck on Centrelink and Newstart wouldn't give an arm to work in the hospitality industry … for which they were trained a decade or more ago by TAFE?

How come true Aussies don't get those jobs?

How come the govt. brings them in from overseas on 'labour migration laws' when half or more Aussies can't find work to save themselves?

and you expect us … me in this instance .. to give a rat's about some subcontinental who can't even  be bothered having a shave (as per photo accompanying article) ?

oh yes, very much they want to work in Australia under LABOUR MIGRATION LAWS !

you bet they do !!

and when they're HERE and being PAID as per their contracts -- suddenly they're whining.  They want MORE.  And the traitor unions rush in to assist, don't they, ACTU president Michele O'Neil

and leak to the media

who are part of the globalist scam .. owned and controlled by now only FIVE globalist destroyers

Well, I won't patronise anything that employs foreigners over Aussies

Coles and Woolies are at least smart enough to put Aussie faces in amongst the invaders

Now this media beat-up is thrusting properties owned by the principals/employers in the hope of stirring up that good old have/have not tall-poppy envy and resentment amongst the natives, to persuade them that Unshaven Migration Law whats-his-name in the photo there (and his buddies) will grab sympathy and support

NO.  No support from me and .. I hope .. from the majority of others who trouble to read this BS

Jobs for Aussies should be paramount in govt. 'laws' and policies.  But it's not so.  They're dragging them in from all foreign  nations while pretending to 'create jobs' for disenfranchised Aussies

Do I want my bed made or dinner cooked or served by some foreign speaking, unshaven ingrate whiner?  No damn way.  Nor would most others if they knew how each of those characters was costing an Aussie a job


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whiteknight
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Re: Staff Threatened After Speaking Out
Reply #3 - Jul 9th, 2019 at 9:42am
 
“When people are paid below the legal minimum, forced to live where their employer chooses and made to pay exorbitant rent or face sacking and deportation, that’s extreme exploitation," she said.   Sad
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PZ547
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Re: Staff Threatened After Speaking Out
Reply #4 - Jul 9th, 2019 at 10:05am
 
I won't be patronising the employers, that's for sure

Clear as the nose on their faces that the only reason they got involved in 'migration labour laws' was to exploit Aussies across the board

first, by getting bonuses from govt. to bring foreigners over here

second, by treating the foreign labour AS foreign labour who're lucky to be here and grabbed the opportunity only to whine later .. which is become common in the media

Next time, those employers and others like them should try to think a bit longer term

sure, they get immediate gratification of their greed through shafting the foreign labour instead of treating them in the same manner as they'd have to treat Aussies .. same Aussies the employers refused to employ because they'd have to pay them appropriately

So sucks to be you, scum employers and opportunistic foreign labour

you BOTH shafted Australia

just as you've shafted each other

egg on your faces now


Now, shonky govt. globalist pigs ... send the foreign labour back to wherever and do NOT grant them residency status

and do NOT encourage greedy employers to opt for foreigners over Aussies

and do as WE say because WE the public pay you the shonk govt.  And we're really done with you bastards but you're like super-nits .. it's nigh impossible to get rid of your octupus arms (ALP loves LNP) without a full-on revolution


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