Brothers Rosario and Enrico Pucci have both been fined, while Grouped Property Services has been penalised nearly half a million dollars for underpaying employees, many of them foreign workers with limited English.
A Colombian student was threatened with deportation, an Italian student was told to 'kiss my ass' after requesting unpaid wages, and another struggled to support her partner through cancer treatment.
These are the stories of just some of the employees of a Sydney-based cleaning company which has been fined more than $447,000 for exploiting 51 workers, some of whom were treated, in effect, as slaves.
Many victims of the company were foreign workers on temporary visas, who had limited English skills and were unfamiliar with Australian labour laws.
The Fair Work Ombudsman, Natalie James, says it was one of the agency's most complex matters.
"Grouped property services is a company that has been at the centre of a scheme that has been designed to deprive vulnerable workers of their wages and entitlements for a very long time. And we're very pleased that the court has handed down almost half a million dollars' worth of penalties in response to their behaviour."
The company, Grouped Property Services, has also been ordered to repay over $223,000 in back-pay to employees it exploited between 2011 and 2013.
As she handed down her findings, Justice Anna Katzmann described Rosario Pucci's treatment of vulnerable workers as "inexcusable", "disgraceful", "reprehensible" and "shameful".
Grouped Property Services claim the 51 workers were employed by a labour-hire company, National Contractors Pty Ltd.
But Justice Katzmann has found National Contractors was merely a shell company, set up by Grouped Property Services to avoid paying employees the minimum award wages and entitlements.
Ombusdsman Natalie James says the company targeted vulnerable workers, many of whom were not aware of their rights.
"A large number of the workers were from a range of non-English speaking background. We have Italian and Colombian workers here as well as Vietnamese, Chinese and a number of other nationalities. Some of them were also on visas including visas where the way in which they were working may have compromised their visas. One of the things that we applaud is some of these vulnerable workers coming forward to the Fair Work Ombudsman for help. We can protect visa holders including around their visa conditions if they come to us for help. We have an arrangement with the Department of Immigration to make sure their visa is not compromised if they work with us to bring operators like this to justice."
But local employees were also exploited, including this former worker, who wants to remain anonymous.
"When you first start any job you check the pay slips regularly. Everything seemed to be okay. But there were lots of changes. I found out later on that I had not been receiving a lot of requirements that were required. When you go on holidays you were told you would have your holiday pay before you went on holidays. But what would happen is three months after you've come back from holiday you would get your pay. I was told by Fair Work after I finished working there to check my superannuation. I said that on my pay slips there was an amount there on my superannuation that they'd put in. They said go and check it so I did. They had not put any super into my account for the entire time that I worked there."
It's not the first time the company has come to the attention of authorities.
In 2011, Rosario Pucci was penalised $4,400 for underpaying staff.
But his company, Wash and Go, had gone into liquidation, preventing the Fair Work Ombudsman from securing the penalties.
Enrico Pucci says Grouped Property Services is seeking legal advice, and plans to contest the decision.
