Westfield targeted in cleaner wage campaign

The operator of one of the world's largest retail portfolios, the Westfield Group, is remaining silent over accusations contract cleaners at its shopping centres face what a union calls back-breaking workloads and poverty wages.

(Transcript from World News Australia Radio)

The United Voice union says some contracted cleaners at Westfield centres have been paid below-award wages, and others are struggling to survive on low pay rates.

As Greg Dyett reports, Westfield won't answer the allegations directly itself.

For several years, the United Voice union has been campaigning for higher wages for contract cleaners employed at Westfield's 39 shopping centres across Australia.

But Westfield itself has been silent - referring all media inquiries to the Shopping Centre Council of Australia.

The Shopping Centre Council describes itself as the representative body for 21 shopping centre owners, including Westfield, two independent shopping centre management companies and the Property Council of Australia.

The council's executive director is a former editor of the Sydney Morning Herald, Milton Cockburn.

"The (union) campaign is not targeting Westfield. It's an industry-wide campaign. Essentially United Voice is seeking over-award payments for cleaners who work in shopping centres and the industry has said look, it's not appropriate for us to be paying over-award payments. The Fair Work Australia Commission is there to arbitrate on wages disputes. There's now the modern award in place, the Cleaning Services Industry Award. If there's an argument that cleaners should be paid more, then this is an argument for paying cleaners throughout our economy more and that should be addressed through the modern award not by a campaign for over-award payments."

The union says contracted cleaners at Westfield's shopping centres are making do on $17.05 per hour.

But Milton Cockburn disputes this.

"It's around about $19 an hour for cleaners, but most of them in shopping centres would be being paid significantly more than that because they're probably on shiftwork and such like so they'd be being paid the appropriate penalties under the award for whatever work they're doing. In some cases, cleaners in shopping centres are probably being paid an hourly rate higher than those who are working in the retail shops, an hourly rate higher than the retail industry awards. So I think we should just keep that in perspective."

The National President of the United Voice union Michael Crosby admits the campaign is partly about encouraging Westfield to pay over-award wages.

But he says in some cases, Westfield has not been paying its contracted cleaners even the award rate.

"Quite a few of their cleaners don't get paid the award rate. Six months ago the Fair Work Ombudsman at our suggestion audited Westfield's absolute iconic site, Centrepoint in Sydney, and what they discovered was a whole pile of cleaners not being paid their entitlements under the award. Now that is extraordinary. That particular shopping centre per square metre is the richest shopping centre in the world in terms of rental payments, that's the shopping centre where cleaners were being most ripped off."

The Fair Work Ombudsman says its inspectors have recovered hundreds of thousands of dollars for cleaners who were underpaid.

Some have been employed at Sydney's Westfield shopping complex.

Last October, the Ombudsman found that 53 cleaners employed by a Victorian-based contractor at Westfield had been underpaid a total of more than $68,000 over an 18-month period.

This year, the Ombudsman says it will be randomly auditing up to 1000 cleaning contractors to try to improve compliance within the industry.

Michael Crosby from United Voice says the Westfield Group has shown it's at the heart of the problem.

"Look there's no doubt about that. Westfield is the absolute industry leader. They run the biggest, richest shopping centres and they're specifically involved in the poor treatment of cleaners. They've got 17 hundred cleaners across all their shopping centres and those cleaners generally are of migrant origin. Quite a few of them are recent migrants to Australia. It's their first job in Australia. They're trying to survive and raise their families on $17 an hour."

But Milton Cockburn from the Shopping Industry Council describes the criticism of Westfield as a union ploy.

He says another company will be targeted next under the union's campaign, so it's appropriate that the Council speaks on behalf of its members.

"That's simply a union tactic, I mean Westfield happens to be a company that brands its shopping centres. It's a prominent brand and the union is deliberately targeted that particular brand. Now, they're happening to target Westfield this week but they're targeting other shopping centre owners at other times. It is an industry-wide campaign. They've made it very clear that this is something that they want throughout the entire shopping centre industry, not just in relation to Westfield centres and it's quite appropriate that it be handled by on an industry basis by the Shopping Centre Council."