Cleaning boss who owes $120k: I’m a victim too
Bhumika Kohli refuses to pay her exploited ex-employees. Another has come forward claiming they were ripped off, but Kohli insists she isn’t in the wrong. Steve Kilgallon reports.
A cleaning company boss who has left four former employees waiting on over $120,000 of back wages and penalties since 2018 claims she’s the victim in the case.
Stuff reported last week on a ruling by the Employment Relations Authority that Bhumika Kohli’s company NZ Cleanmaster routinely underpaid its cleaning staff by 30 per cent, resulting in wages as low as $7.50 an hour.
But Kohli said the ERA decision was unfair, and she was going through a ‘‘tough time’’. She is offshore – thought to be in India – and indicated no firm plans to return to New Zealand or to pay what she owes.
Meanwhile, another former employee has come forward claiming they too were underpaid and were owed about $25,000 in lost wages.
The ERA ruled against Kohli in 2019, saying she had underpaid four employees $93,776. The authority imposed penalties on the company and Kohli of $30,000.
She had an Employment Court claim thrown out after failing to lodge a bond, and then had an enforcement notice entered against her from the ERA, adding another $2000 in costs.
But Kohli has yet to pay a cent. The ERA found she routinely skimmed wages by not paying travel time between jobs, and offering discount deals on coupon sites where two staff would attend, but they would be paid the rate of one cleaner between them.
Kohli emailed the Sunday Star-Times saying she had lost her day job during the pandemic and ‘‘was struggling to survive in NZ. Currently, I am stuck overseas and going through a tough time with my health’’.
She said she was ‘‘not in the condition to comment, due to being stuck overseas and have very limited access to the internet’’.
But she said: ‘‘I had no intentions not to pay them for their wages claim. Since mediation, I had been making offers to them, and they kept refusing.
‘‘I do not agree with the ERA decision and have appealed to the Employment Court to be fair on both parties.
‘‘Due to Covid pandemic we could not proceed with the court for further investigation. I am waiting to come back home and might reappeal the ERA decision.’’
Kohli said she would like to give more ‘‘detailed comment in person’’ but only when she was back in Auckland. She said the Star-Times should not write ‘‘without evidence and without the knowing my side of the story’’.
Before publication of the original report, the Star-Times made extensive attempts to contact Kohli, visiting her last domestic address, addresses registered for her and husband Rahul Bhandari’s companies, phoning her mobile number, sending her a Facebook message, leaving mul
‘‘My situation right now is worse due to Covid, stuck overseas with no money and struggling with my health. I will be in touch with you as soon as things get better.’’ Bhumika Kohli
tiple messages for Bhandari at several business numbers, visiting Bhandari’s current business address, and emailing her via her lawyer, Dave Jaques.
Her reply arrived 12 days after the email was sent.
‘‘My situation right now is worse due to Covid, stuck overseas with no money and struggling with my health,’’ Kohli said. ‘‘I will be in touch with you as soon as things get better.’’
The workers’ legal representatives said Kohli’s legal avenues were exhausted and there was no further right of appeal.
‘‘This issue arose long before Covid-19, and by the time the country went into lockdown in
March 2020, the remedies awarded by the Employment Relations Authority were already overdue for payment by six months,’’ said barrister David Fleming, who represents the workers.
Nathan Santesso, an advocate for the four workers, said while Jaques had once discussed a possible settlement figure, Kohli had never actually made an offer to settle.
‘‘It would be good if she would just email me,’’ he said.
Santesso said he had heard Kohli and Bhandari were back in Punjab and had plans to leave New Zealand permanently.
The principal claimant, Palav Brahmhbatt, who was for a period paid only in bus fares and meals, is owed $70,000 and said she was verbally abused by Kohli and Bhandari while working seven-day, 70-hour weeks.
Brahmhbatt said she was ‘‘not surprised that she is saying she does not owe any money, as she kept telling this even [after the ERA judgment].’’
Brahmhbatt said she and the three other claimants had submitted a large amount of compelling evidence, including two years of text messages between her, Kohli and Bhandari.
‘‘It’s all false pleading,’’ she said. ‘‘If she wants to give some money to us, why she is not approaching us or Nathan [Santesso] or David [Fleming, their barrister].’’
Kohli did not respond to further questions sent in a followup email.
The Star-Times asked her about claims by Pavan Patel, another former employee who has since come forward and said that he was owed $25,000 in lost wages.
Patel, who said he was one of NZ Cleanmaster’s earliest employees, said: ‘‘They ripped me off a lot. They did the same thing [to me as they did to the other workers], I didn’t get paid whatever I worked. That time was hard for me and my family, so I had to struggle a lot when I worked for them.’’
Patel worked for them as a student between 2015 and 2016 and said he worked 60 to 70 hours a week but because he was on a student visa, which caps workers at 20 hours a week, he was paid for just 20 hours at minimum wage.
He said that meant he ended up with an hourly rate of about $4 to $5 an hour.
Patel said he lived with the couple for a time and was very close to them, and because he had a degree in IT, the couple suggested he study a business course so they could sponsor him for residency.
He left their employment after a car accident while he was travelling to a cleaning job in one of their cars in which he was found legally liable and told to pay $17,000 in insurance claims.
He alleged that was because the couple had no proper insurance policy. He said he never received his final pay.
‘‘I kept asking and asking and I think they must have changed their number because I kept calling.’’
He says after seeing the StarTimes’ article last week he called Premium Clean and spoke to Bhandari, who hung up the phone once he identified himself.
One of the four original claimants, Hardik Gediye, corroborated Patel’s claims.
‘‘He was working very long hours just like me,’’ he said.
Asked if Patel was exploited, he said: ‘‘Yes, absolutely he was.’’