Hiri-Gualeni approached Kaukau seeking employment after seeing a sign in the window of her shop.
She claimed Kaukau failed to pay her wages for the hours and days she worked, and she was constructively dismissed, meaning she felt she had no choice but to resign.
She said she was not provided with a written employment agreement, in breach of the Employment Relations Act, and that Kaukau failed to keep, and produce on request, her wage and time records and leave records.
Kaukau also failed to produce evidence of the records for the authority, which then accepted Hiri-Gualeni's claims "as proven".
Hiri-Gualeni said she agreed to work full-time from 10am until 4pm Mondays to Fridays and Saturdays as required, working at least 30 hours a week.
Due to her childcare responsibilities, she was unable to do any other work for any other employer, and she told the authority she was not involved in any other business.
Sewing threads. Photo / File
Hiri-Gualeni told the authority she ended up often working longer than her contracted hours.
"Sometimes Ms Hiri-Gualeni would go back to work from 5pm to 8pm to make sure that all of the work from clients, that had to be done by a certain deadline, was completed on time."
She said she did this to ensure the work was completed to the required standard so Kaukau was paid by clients.
Hiri-Gualeni sought 23 weeks of lost remuneration for the time between her resignation and when she started a training course on July 22.
The ruling said: "The lack of wages and the dismissal resulted in Ms Hiri-Gualeni suffering financial stress and hardship, which was increased by the fact that she had no money to pay for the school fees, school uniforms and stationery that she was required to provide for her children."
Kaukau did not communicate with the authority during its inquiry and did not appear at an investigations meeting.
Hiri-Gualeni did attend and was questioned about her evidence in her witness statement.
The authority's ruling, released just before Christmas, ordered Kaukau to pay Hiri-Gualeni $10,000 in distress compensation "for the humiliation, loss of dignity and injury to feelings".
She was also ordered to pay Hiri-Gualeni $2957.16 in wage arrears, $11,961 for lost remuneration, $1125 for Hiri-Gualeni's legal costs and $71.56 to reimburse her for the filing fee.
Kaukau was also instructed to pay $2000 in penalties to the Crown.
