Restaurant owner shows 'no real remorse' for employment breaches

Friday, 28 September 2018

Rotorua company Vishnu Hospitality Limited, which trades as Lovely India restaurant, has been fined for breaching minimum employment standards and failing to comply with the Labour Inspectorate's investigation.

A Rotorua restaurant has been ordered to pay $10,000 for failing to keep accurate employment records, and subsequently provide those records when requested by the Labour Inspectorate.

Vishnu Hospitality Limited, which trades as Lovely India restaurant, has been fined for breaching minimum employment standards and failing to comply with the Labour Inspectorate's investigation.

The Employment Relations Authority (ERA) found that company director Nilin Patel's co-operation with the Inspectorate's inquiry was 'grudging and partial'.

Labour Inspectorate national manager Stu Lumsden said Patel failed to provide relevant employment records and misled the inspectorate during the investigation.

'Patel put the onus of recording holiday and leave records for staff on a manager, and we later found that those records did not exist,' Lumsden said.

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Labour Inspectorate national manager Stu Lumsden says the business failed to provide relevant employment records and misled the inspectorate during the investigation.

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'The responsibility to ensure accurate employment records are kept lies solely with the employer, and where these aren't provided in a timely manner, the inspectorate will seek penalties though the ERA.'

Because he failed to comply with the Labour Inspectorate, the investigation took more than a year.

Patel entered into mediation through Employment Mediation Services with the aim to discuss and agree on what arrears were owed to staff, in the absence of legally required physical records.

He then independently arranged settlements of wage arrears with his employees.

The ERA saw this as a 'less costly option' for Patel, and that he had showed 'no real remorse' demonstrated for breaching his employees' minimum employment rights.

'If employers are found to breach their employees' minimum rights, we expect them to co-operate and comply with our investigations, and where this isn't being done, they can expect to face further penalties and costs in the ERA,' Lumsden said.

In this year's budget, the Labour Inspectorate received a $8.8 million boost to beef up its resources to crackdown on industries where worker exploitation is rife, notably construction, hospitality and horticulture.

Immigration Minister Iain Lees-Galloway said the expected funding boost for Immigration New Zealand and the Labour Inspectorate would double the number of inspectors by the end of this Government's term.

The inspectorate had 54 inspectors in April last year.