Recently, an Australian executive at Cleanaway received a 30% reduction in his short-term bonus as a result of several workplace fatalities. This type of action is not uncommon. Although some of the media note this as a significant occupational health and safety (OHS) consequence, why not lose all of the bonus? Is this just taking away money that the executive had not yet received? Is this a deterrence?
The major coverage of this action appeared in the Australian Financial Review (AFR) of September 4 2025, written by Anthony Macdonald. As the article is paywalled, an AI-generated summary is below.
Cleanaway Waste Management reduced CEO Mark Schubert’s short-term bonus by 30% after reporting three workplace fatalities and an increase in serious injuries in FY25. The fatalities occurred at a recycling plant in Sydney, a municipal collections truck in Victoria, and a single-vehicle accident in South Australia. Cleanaway has had seven fatalities in four years, prompting investor concerns about its safety record.
Schubert is two years into a five-year health and safety improvement plan aimed at standardising systems across its 350 branches. Despite setbacks, he claims progress is being made. The board’s decision to cut bonuses, costing Schubert $500,000, followed consultations with investors and reflected dissatisfaction with the safety performance and the financial impact of a facility fire.
The article compares Cleanaway’s response to that of other companies, such as Woolworths and Orica, which also reduced executive bonuses following workplace deaths. Debate continues over whether the penalty was adequate, with focus shifting to preventing future incidents.
Schubert missed out on around $500,000, but the total dollar value of the bonus is not mentioned in the AFR article. It says:
“However, the board applied its discretion and shaved 30 per cent off the payments following the investor meetings, cutting them to 72.9 per cent of the target and 43.5 per cent off the maximum. It was about a $500,000 hit for Schubert.”
My Bachelor of Arts mathematics can’t calculate the remaining bonus he received, but should he have received any additional remuneration, beyond his salary, in a year with “three workplace fatalities and an increase in serious injuries“?
Macdonal opens his article with these questions and notes that the reduction occurred after a meeting with investors. It is worth asking whether the Board intended to reduce the bonus or if the idea originated from the investors. Macdonald wrote:
“Cleanaway’s board sent chairman Phillippe Etienne and human resources committee chair Samantha Hogg to talk to investors and proxy advisers before coming up with the 30 per cent cut, but the truth is it was seeking an unachievable goldilocks number.
There is no right or wrong number for the bonus, just three people who died and an increase in injuries.” (links added)
Macdonald wrote that:
“There is a precedent; workplace deaths happen, including at listed companies, and they do impact executive bonuses.
Woolworths, for example, had two deaths at one of its sites in the 2023 financial year. The board cut executive bonuses by 10 per cent that year (from 89.8 per cent of target to 79.8 per cent). …..
SGH Group is another – it had fatalities at two of its businesses in FY25 (Coates Hire and Boral) and cut its respective business leaders’ short-term bonuses by the full safety component amount (about 5 per cent).
Orica had one fatality in FY24 (a collision on a public road in India) and reduced the 10 per cent safety component of all executives’ short-term incentives to nil.”
The AFR is a business and finance newspaper, so the narrowness of the impact assessment in the first sentence is perhaps understandable. However, socially and in OHS terms, it seems somewhat weak. In each circumstance, bonuses are reduced or removed. Bonuses are rewards given after a job well done and when those Key Performance Indicators are met. They are not guaranteed payments, and not every worker is entitled to them. I don’t accept that losing a proportion of something contingent on performance is a penalty at all. The executives still receive their salaries. They still receive the majority of their short-term bonuses.
The issue of rewards and bonuses and OHS has cropped up several times in this blog. Andrew, Hopkins and Sarah Maslen devoted an entire book to the issue. The authors suggest that the receipt of any bonus in a year of work-related fatalities sends the wrong message about corporate values and undermines OHS.
Macdonald wrote:
“You can debate whether that 30 per cent deduction was adequate or inadequate in light of the issues – and investors have and probably will continue to, ahead of Cleanaway’s annual general meeting next month. That’s healthy, and this one’s a particularly gnarly example. They should be just as focused on what Cleanaway is doing to prevent the next lot of accidents/workplace incidents, rather than seeking retribution for last year’s.”
Environmental issues are not the same as worker fatalities, but Cleanawy has faced investor questions about bonuses previously. Regardless of investor complaints in 2022 about a persistent stench from one of its waste sites in Queensland, executives received no reduction in bonuses. Schubert had only recently taken on the CEO role.
Cleanaway’s AGM is likely to gain media attention in October. It will be interesting to see what is said and what is reported.
Not at all they should be held criminally accountable