Hotel cleaning inspections uncover 39 violations

Austria’s Financial Police found 39 violations during inspections of 28 hotel-cleaning businesses in five states, ORF reported. Most involved breaches of working-time rules.

The inspections took place in Vienna, Tyrol, Upper Austria, Carinthia and Styria. They were conducted at the same time as a large-scale operation by German authorities targeting an international criminal group suspected of illegal employment and labour exploitation in the cleaning sector, Austria’s Finance Ministry said.

The violations included five breaches of the Foreign Employment Act, seven of the General Social Insurance Act, one of the Social Fraud Prevention Act and 26 of the Working Time Act. Inspectors also encountered one person who, according to an initial assessment, was in Austria illegally.

The Financial Police attached claims to recover tax debts totalling about €323,000. Four businesses are suspected of being shell companies under the Social Fraud Prevention Act. Investigations are already under way into two of them, while inspections raised suspicions about possible shell-company structures at the other two.

Christian Ackerler, head of the Office for Combating Fraud, said the Financial Police would pursue businesses that use shell companies or conceal employment. Finance Minister Markus Marterbauer said the government had “zero tolerance” for tax and levy fraud, citing the interests of workers and law-abiding businesses.