Collapsed company behind Pink Flamingo cabaret club previously subject to unfair dismissal action

Liquidation of a company operating Pink Flamingo cabaret club has put a spotlight on a row with ex-staff - and a Fair Work Commissioner highly critical of company actions. Find out more

A Fair Work commissioner has lambasted a Gold Coast cabaret club’s operating company bosses for treating sacked staff like “Watergate” burglars who posted secrets to “Wikileaks”.

The commissioner also found the way bosses had treated the two sacked employees - eventually awarded $30,000 for unfair dismissal - was “far more serious” than what the staff had done to prompt their axing.

The liquidation of a Pink Flamingo cabaret club operating company has put a spotlight on the costly stoush with the ex-bartender and an ex-box office assistant.

Project 88 TPF, which operated The Pink Flamingo, was placed into voluntary liquidation on Monday with debts of more than $3m, including $2 million in unpaid tax.

Despite the liquidation, the club was still selling tickets for weekend shows after a new company was created by the partner of one of the directors.

The company found itself in a separate flap last year when it was ordered to pay $30,000 to two former staff in the unfair dismissal case.

The company was last year ordered to pay out the $30,000 to two ex-employees after the workplace watchdog found they were unfairly sacked from the club.

The Fair Work commission found Project 88, trading as Pink Flamingo, did not have grounds to dismiss the former bartender and box office assistant who had discussed a colleague’s confidential salary in private messages.

Project 88 was directed by Pink Flamingo founders Sue Porrett and Tony Rigas, with a registered place of business at the cabaret’s venue at 88 Surf Pde Broadbeach.

The club is now being operated by a new company directed by Mr Rigas’ partner Louise Huxham, also a senior manager of the venue.

Louise Huxham and Tony Rigas at Pink Flamingo. Picture: Pedro Freitas

Commissioner Stephen Crawford ordered the company to pay Sierra Louie and Claudia McLeod a combined $30,000 over the incident.

The commissioner criticised the company for telling the two young women they had committed a criminal offence when they spoke about their friend’s new pay rate.

The decision said Ms Huxham had accessed the personal social media account of a different ex-colleague via their former work phone without permission to find “evidence” of the conversation.

The decision said the company had “ambushed” the women when they were called into a meeting the day they were sacked; were given inaccurate information when they got there; and were not offered the chance to have a support person present.

Claudia McLeod

Sierra Louie.

The commissioner found senior manager Ms Huxham’s conduct in accessing her staff’s personal social media had been “far more serious” than the employees’ behaviour.

“The way Project 88’s representatives (including CEO Peter Snee) presented the severity of what had occurred … made it seem like Ms McLeod and Ms Louie had broken into Project 88’s equivalent to a ‘Watergate complex’, stolen key intellectual property secrets and posted them on WikiLeaks,” Commissioner Crawford said.

“However, all they had done was privately discuss the salary rate of a friend, and the salary rate was quite unremarkable.

“A business employing over 100 employees should not have acted the way Project 88 did.”

Originally published as Collapsed company behind Pink Flamingo cabaret club previously subject to unfair dismissal action