A woman accused of ripping off Thai workers shipped into her Auckland factory has been hit with more than $300,000 in fines and backpay.
The Employment Tribunal in Auckland found that Wiliwan Sivoravong owed eight sewing workers $256,000 just to meet the minimum wage of $7 an hour for their labour in her Glen Eden factory between February 1997 and last October.
In a rare decision, adjudicator Julie Kemp said Sivoravong's actions were so bad that she must also pay the maximum penalty for 18 breaches of minimum-wage and holidays legislation, totalling $36,000. Costs were also awarded.
The Department of Labour claimed that the women were paid $575 a month to sew garments for 12 hours a day, six days a week, and that up to 10 workers at a time shared three bedrooms in Sivoravong's home.
Sivoravong was said to have made the women sign a wages book, taken their passports and called them "dogmouth" when they complained.
The department pursued the case after a Herald investigation uncovered the story late last year.
Sivoravong declined to defend herself at the hearing, but yesterday she told the Herald that she had yet to hear the verdict and felt she was suffering because she knew little about New Zealand law.
The department had "taken" her workers and she was forced to close her factory.
"I just pay them what they want and then they just change their minds and want to be paid by the hour," she said. "Now I don't have anything."
Mike Feely, the department's chief labour inspector, described the verdict as very significant and said investigators were probing other workshops with "similar disturbing hallmarks" in Auckland.
"I don't want too much chest-beating, but this shows that the department is prepared to go to some lengths in an investigation."
Mr Feely said an injunction had been put on Sivoravong's assets and an Employment Court would decide the next step in how they would be used to pay the workers.
Sivoravong had disputed whether some of the assets were hers, and also had the right to appeal against the tribunal's decision.
Ms Kemp said in her decision that one "particularly sad feature" of the case was that Sivoravong deliberately took advantage of fellow Thai.
The evidence showed that she lured them to New Zealand by misrepresenting the conditions of their jobs, including so-called free food and lodging. Sivoravong was unfair and unreasonable in taking their passports to stop them from running away.
"Requiring three or four adults to share a bedroom for nearly two years is unacceptable by New Zealand standards," Ms Kemp said. "It is insulting and degrading for Mrs Sivoravong to suggest to adult women that their leaving employment would be running away."
Sweatshop operator gets hefty penalty
AdvertisementAdvertise with NZME.