Illegal worker cooked for year without pay

Even illegal workers have to be paid minimum wages, the Employment Tribunal has ruled in a $35,000 judgment against an Indian restaurant.

Saying codes must be enforced to protect workers from exploitation, the tribunal has ordered Alexander Gomes, of the Shiva Indian Restaurant in Takapuna, to pay all the money in the first instance to the Labour Department.

This includes penalties to the department of $14,700 and wage arrears of $20,000 plus interest owed to a cook who received no payment for 12 months in which he worked without a permit.

Tribunal member Alastair Dumbleton said Work and Income should be invited to take a first cut from the arrears, to give it the opportunity to recover money which tandoori chef Ashish Ralli accepted from a friend in receipt of a benefit while working.

Mr Ralli will be entitled to anything left over, although it is understood he may have left the country.

The tribunal heard that Mr Ralli arrived in New Zealand on a two-month visitors' permit on May 13, 1998, and began working the next day.

He worked at the restaurant for 15 months, mostly seven days a week and some days for 11 or 12 hours.

For a year he was paid nothing. After he obtained a work permit he was paid for two weeks at $350 a week. He later received two $500 cheques, one of which bounced, and $50 a day for his last seven days' work.

The tribunal found no records were kept by Mr Gomes as required under the Holidays and Minimum Wages Acts, and there was evidence that he was dishonest, particularly in dealing with the Immigration Service, but Mr Ralli was not an innocent who had his rights flagrantly abused.

Mr Ralli was taken advantage of to some degree and Mr Gomes deliberately breached the law, thinking Mr Ralli was unlikely to complain about his conditions while he did not have a work permit.

The tribunal said it was audacious for Mr Ralli to complain about his job conditions after working so long in breach of his entry permit and after helping another person to illegally retain welfare payments.

But minimum employment codes had to be enforced for the protection of other workers at risk of exploitation.

Even if Mr Ralli, who has since gained permanent residency, was working in breach of immigration law, his rights to wages were enforceable by law.

Breaches of the immigration law were a matter for the Immigration Service.

"I expect it has looked closely at the circumstances in which Mr Ralli has now obtained permanent residence in New Zealand and, in doing so, made false statements about the period of his employment ... in breach of his visitor's permits," Mr Dumbleton said.

Labour Department employment standards manager Gordon Barlow welcomed the decision as a useful tool for enforcing minimum conditions.

- NZPA and staff reporter