Halls Gap motel manager underpaid and exploited: Fair Work Commission
by Leon Gettler
The Comfort Inn Country Plaza Halls Gap Hotel in the Victoria’s Grampians region has been found to exploit employees.
The case in question involved a hotel manager who was paid as little as $3 an hour.
The Fair Work Commission found that Maricar Virata was subject to "exploitative" working conditions and unfairly dismissed.
As a result, Virata was awarded compensation of $27,500.
The Commission heard that Virata was employed on a 457 visa and put on an annual salary based on 40 hours a week of $55,000, plus 9 per cent superannuation.
Virata's partner, Rolando Gagate, also worked at the Halls Gap Hotel and so the salary, the commission was told, was split between the pair.
Their tasks at the hotel included everything from manning the motel reception to cleaning and housekeeping.
"We had to do the entire operations," Virata said. "It was very tiring. We were working day and night from 7am opening to closing at 1am. Even if you were sleeping at night, you had to wake up if you got a call from a guest. Technically, I was working 24 hours a day and seven days a week. It was tough."
Virata believes she was dismissed when she started questioning how much she was being paid and whether her partner should also be paid.
Her termination, she said, “came out of nowhere”
Commission deputy president Val Gostencnik found that "the nature of [Virata's] employment was, to say the least, unusual. On any view, it was exploitative."
Virata was dismissed on the basis of a bullying complaint. There was also allegations that "relationship issues" between her and Ms Gagate had "adversely impacted the workplace".
However, Gostencnik found that Halls Gap Hotel owner Michael Parkes’ evidence of bullying was "less than convincing".
Gostencnik ruled there was "simply no credible evidence" that relationship difficulties between Ms Virata and Mr Gagate had caused any disruption at the workplace.
Nor was there any evidence that their arguments that might have occurred were heard by anyone, "let alone 'everyone in the hotel'”
24th February 2016
