Bad bosses publicised
Companies that take advantage of their workers are being named and shamed. Anuja Nadkarni reports.
Alegal advocate says a standdown list naming and shaming employers who have breached minimum standards of the employment law will not be enough to solve work exploitation.
Since April over 150 noncompliant employers have been put onto the standdown list, according to the Labour Inspectorate.
Workers’ advocate Nathan Santesso said a stronger deterrent could be making certain types of exploitation a criminal offence.
‘‘There are a lot of issues at play here but a big one of them is that this is a type of white collar crime that’s not treated as a crime,’’ Santesso said.
‘‘You don’t see the police going and arresting these people. It’s a very low risk and high reward crime.’’
Santesso said one of his clients worked for a large retail clothing chain to fund her budding photography career.
She has not been paid for about 20 hours of overtime, and the 22-year-old’s employer has also breached her holiday and annual leave entitlements, Santesso said.
Her story was not an anomaly. Recently the Labour Inspectorate issued out a warning for other employers to provide correct entitlements to staff during the Christmas period.
It was sparked by an Auckland restaurant which failed to pay 10 employees their entitlements and fined $22,000 by the Employment Relations Authority (ERA).
In other cases, migrant employees have had to worked under bonded labour or without employment contracts.
Earlier this year an ERA decision showed an exploited Chinese New Zealand newspaper worker was asked to pay a $50,000 premium in return for a job.
The standdown list was introduced in April by the Labour Inspectorate and Immigration New Zealand working together to hold employers to account.
Employers on the list are not able to sponsor new visas to recruit migrant labour for a period between six months and two years.
Common breaches include failing to provide their employee with at least the minimum wage, holiday pay, an employment agreement, or keep records of employment as legally required.
An infringement notice will result in fines of $1,000 per breach up to $20,000 in any three month period. So far the Labour Inspectorate has collected fines totalling nearly a million dollars.
Labour Inspectorate national manager Stu Lumsden said eventually customer awareness of the list may be enough to keep employers in line.
‘‘We’ll get to a point where people will think twice before buying goods or services unless they can guarantee those industries are looking after their workers.
‘‘It should be clear to employers from the standdown list that access to migrant labour is a privilege not a right, and if you fail to meet the bare minimum standards required to be an employer in New Zealand you will lose this access.’’
Hospitality employers tend to frequent the list, but Hospitality New Zealand spokeswoman Rachael Shadbolt said businesses in the sector were also frequently small.
‘‘Sometimes it’s not a case of deliberately not complying. It can be just a case of not knowing.
‘‘We spend a lot of our time making sure our clients have all the finer details whether that’s Easter trading or staff entitlements for holiday pay. It’s really complex for them to get their heads around.’’
The heftiest fine paid so far is $78,000 by a restaurant which failed to pay correct wages and holiday pay to 70 staff.