Fines unpaid: ‘it’s not fair’

A WOMAN harassed and underpaid during a sixmonth ordeal at a massage store in Dunedin’s Meridian Mall says the stress contributed to her miscarriage.

She and another woman spoken to by the Otago Daily Times say they are outraged that the manager who harassed them, Patrick (Ping) Du, continues to work at the same location, which is now under new ownership.

They are also frustrated Mr Du is refusing to pay the penalty imposed by a recent Employment Relations Authority (ERA) ruling that found him and the owner liable for a combined $30,000 in penalties and wage arrears which remain outstanding.

Mr Du has denied all their claims and says he is the victim of a smear campaign.

The ERA ruling, released on August 26, found two employees of Elements Therapeutic Massage Ltd, were underpaid $12,740 throughout the sixmonth period they were employed in 2018.

The ruling said the young and ‘‘objectively vulnerable’’ migrant workers, known as Rebecca and

Emily, were harassed, underpaid, threatened, misled and given illegal contracts. Rebecca was sacked without cause, the ruling found.

For their parts in the breaches of labour standards owner Xuan (Nick) Zhang was ordered to pay $26,265 in arrears and penalties, while Mr Du was ordered to pay a penalty of $4000.

Efforts to contact Mr Zhang have been unsuccessful and it is believed he has returned to China.

While not central to the determination, the authority found Mr Du had sent emails to Rebecca that were ‘‘objectively harassing and inappropriately personal in content’’ and that there was ‘‘plenty of documentary evidence to establish that [he] subjected Rebecca to unwelcome attention and his denials of such lacked credibility’’.

Emily told the ODT she felt uncomfortable and unsafe around Mr Du who would accidentally touch and bump into her and Rebecca.

One one occasion, she believed he pretended not to know she was changing clothes and opened a curtain.

He also forced them to massage ‘‘creepy customers’’, who insisted on being naked, around sensitive parts of their bodies.

He would yell that they would not be paid if they refused to do it, she said.

She had considered resigning from the store because of the issues with pay and Mr Du’s behaviour, but he had told her if she resigned without permission he would call her next boss and say bad things about her.

When she eventually quit in September, she was pregnant but lost the baby in an ectopic pregnancy which doctors told her was caused by stress, which she believed her working conditions had contributed to.

❛ We have waited for quite a long time for this money but they still refuse to pay us

Emily was upset they had not yet received any of the money from the ERA ruling, and hoped the Government could intervene.

‘‘I hope the Government can force them to pay us . . . we have waited for quite a long time for this money but they still refuse to pay United States.

‘‘It is not fair. They are the law breakers,’’ Emily said.

Rebecca was also upset by how long it had taken for their case to be dealt with.

‘‘It’s just tremendously slow, it’s outrageous,’’ she said.

She believed Mr Du should not be allowed to stay in the country.

‘‘He did a series of harassments to me such as touching my hand, accidentally bumping his hand to my breasts, or suddenly pulling my ponytail when I was having lunch [and] gently touching my thigh as if he was comforting me while I complained,’’ she said.

While she was working at the business he had sent large volumes of messages to her, including up to 25 emails a day and 10 minutelong voicemails.

‘‘Normal people don’t do that, not even couples,’’ Rebecca said.

She was also told by him she was not allowed to have male friends.

In one incident, on the eve of Mr Du leaving to China for a holiday in June, he had suddenly grabbed her hand and she had told him to go away. In response Mr Du banged her car door ‘‘really really hard’’ as he walked away, Rebecca said.

He kept texting her until about 2am and she could not block him as he was still the manager

About 8am he showed up at her house and rang the doorbell for about 10 minutes, which resulted in her calling the police.

‘‘It was horrible . . . It felt like God was helping him not me,’’ she said.

Rebecca hoped that Immigration New Zealand was aware of Mr Du’s behaviour at the massage store.

‘‘He doesn’t deserve to stay here any minute longer, he’s a pollution. God knows if he becomes a Kiwi what he will do,’’ Rebecca said.

Mr Du told the ODT the claims against him were false and he had no intention of paying the penalty set out in the ERA decision because ‘‘the penalty period was expired’’, he said.

He intended to seek legal aid to sue the labour inspectorate and said that Rachel and Emily had fabricated evidence to set him up.

‘‘There’s no harassment,’’ Mr Du said.

Police had made a ‘‘final decision’’ in November 2018 which found the employees of the business should not contact each other, Mr Du said. He declined to release correspondence with the police.

He believed the messages used as evidence of harassment by the ERA had been made up by Rebecca and Emily, using their friends’ mobile phones in China.

Throughout his career he had never received any other complaints, Mr Du said. He denied Emily’s claims about pulling back a curtain while she was changing as being ‘‘impossible’’ within a mall.

‘‘Security walk around the mall every two hours. If there’s harassment, you can report to the security,’’ he said. The women also could have quit their jobs, he said.

He denied threatening the women and said they were trying to hide illegal behaviour, which he said included evading taxes.

He denied claims about ordering them to massage naked clients.

He also denied meeting Rebecca at her car and said he visited her house, dropped a printer off on her doorstep and rang the bell one time on the morning when he was driving to the airport.

Mr Du denied the claims he had inappropriately touched Rebecca and Emily, and accused Rebecca of dating and flirting with a client in the workplace employee.

Ultimately he believed Rebecca and Emily were trying to affect his career.

‘‘I think they want to hide their wrongdoings by using this case,’’ Mr Du said.

Massage New Zealand has not responded to requests for comment, but Mr Du’s registration appears to have been removed from their website since last Thursday.

Labour Inspectorate regional manager Jeanie Borsboom confirmed no payment had been received from either Mr Zhang or Mr Du, and as the 28day appeal period had passed the debt could be recovered from them personally.

‘‘The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment will use the most appropriate civil debt recovery options available to recover the money owed to the affected employees,’’ Ms Borsboom said. while she was an