[ad_1]
An Auckland restaurant and its owners were ordered to pay nearly $ 50,000 for exploiting a migrant worker.
Cooking food in a restaurant kitchen Source: istock.com
The worker was asked to make a premium payment to secure her work visa application, and she was also poorly paid.
An investigation by the Labor Inspectorate into Dansan Investments, which operates Saaj Indian Cuisine, discovered the holdings.
The court heard how the worker had been told to make a payment of $ 6,000 to her employers to obtain an application for her work visa. Without that payment, they told him that the work visa would not be supported.
An employment contract also identified a wage discrepancy.
The agreement stated that the employee would work a minimum of 35 hours a week, when she worked between 40 and 65.5 hours a week, and was only paid between 28 and 33 hours a week.
Employers also did not make any vacation pay and did not pay time and a half for work completed on holidays.
The two directors of Dansan Investments, Mary George Varghese and Sheik Abdul Kader, are also personally responsible for the payment.
Along with the $ 32,000 owed in wage arrears, a third of the $ 16,100 in penalties will be paid directly to the exploited worker.
“This is yet another example of an employer using his position of power to exploit a migrant worker, relying on him to obtain a work visa and his right to continue living and working in New Zealand,” says Stu Lumsden, manager National Labor Inspectorate.
Lumsden says that migrants to New Zealand should never have to pay a premium.
“For employers to demand such payment is illegal. Exploiting migrant workers is completely unacceptable and the Labor Inspectorate will take full enforcement action against employers who do so.
“The ERA also made it very clear that this type of offense will not be tolerated by the authorities.”
MBIE says that this is not the first time that Dansan Investments Limited has been investigated by the Labor Inspectorate.
In 2015, a former employee complained that he was not being paid the minimum rights and saw an improvement notice issued by the inspection, which Dansan did not comply with.
