In Search of Commercial Cleaning Work, but at What Cost?

Coverall ad for franchise buyers, source/company website

A day after Christmas, the New York Times prints a sad franchise tale of a Polish immigrant, Jagoda Walczak, who says that Coverall Cleaning lured her to be a franchisee by making a bogus claim that they would provide $5,000 per month in cleaning jobs if she invested $17,600 in a franchise. The professional housekeeper says she was also assured that she could make between $18 to $20 an hour. The firm’s franchise disclosure document (pdf, Item 19, pg. 39) refuses to be pinned down to any such financial earnings projections. To Ms. Walczak, it sounded like a great deal. Yet three months after becoming a franchisee, she quickly came to the conclusion that it was a ploy to get her to work for less than minimum wage.

She wants her money back.

Shannon Liss-Riordan, a lawyer in Boston who has filed a class-action lawsuit against Coverall, says… “Companies like Coverall are competing for commercial cleaning contracts against regular janitorial companies that pay their workers as employees, which means they pay worker’s compensation and have to abide by minimum-wage laws,” she says. “Using the independent contractor model, Coverall doesn’t have to worry about any of that, so they underbid for contracts and obviously the person who gets hurt is the worker.” - NYTimes

Boca Raton-based Coverall Cleaning replies that Ms. Walczak was a bad franchisee from the get-go. That’s why she couldn’t make much money.

But former chief financial officer for Coverall, Steven Cumbow, thinks the firm is simply deflecting the blame. Deposed in a class action lawsuit, he said this about his former employer:

“Coverall has built its business around charging individuals — many of whom are non-English speakers — thousands of dollars in exchange for a promise that it will provide paid cleaning work,” a court document says, paraphrasing Mr. Cumbow’s deposition. “Instead of supplying this business, however, Coverall utilizes a ‘churning’ model whereby it offers business to workers who, Coverall knows, will be unable to accept or to adequately service the account, or revokes business for pretextual reasons.”

“Terminated employee with a grudge,” retorts Coverall about their former CFO who apparently wasn’t a good enough team player for their taste.

In the end, it is the poor Polish housekeeper who is in tears. “You lied to me. You said I could make money and I can’t and now I’m borrowing money and I’m in a worse situation than before.”