Super Liquor Mt Albert workers allege they were paid $6 an hour

Wednesday, 8 May 2019

Two migrant liquor store workers say they were paid as little as $6 an hour for up to 90 hours of work a week.

The case, in which the men also claim they are owed over $300,000, is being described by their union as one of the worst exploitation cases it has ever seen.

The Migrant Workers Association (MWA) will lodge employment complaints this week on behalf of the men against Bhushan Kumar Bansal, the owner of a Super Liquor store in Mt Albert, Auckland.

The pair say they were paid rates from $6 to $10 an hour, sometimes under the table, and sometimes by returning some of their official salaries to Bansal in cash.

The MWA have already reached a confidential settlement with Bansal over complaints made by a third employee.

On Wednesday morning, staff from Super Liquor head office arrived to remove signage and branding from the store on New North Rd, and one staffer could be seen arguing with Bansal about what would be removed from the store. Super Liquor chief executive Campbell McMahon said Bansal had been under investigation for two weeks. McMahon decided he had committed a 'material breach' of his franchise agreement.

'I need to say I am deeply disappointed and angry that this has occurred and we absolutely do not condone or tolerate breaches of fundamental employment law obligations by our franchisees: no exception … we will do everything in our power to stamp this [behaviour] out.'

Are you a liquor store worker who feels you have been exploited? Email Steve.Kilgallon@stuff.co.nz

McMahon said he was contacting the former employees to offer what support he could.

Asked by Stuff if he had exploited workers, paid them as little as $6 an hour and asked them to work 90 hour weeks, Bansal repeatedly said: 'No comment'. Asked if he had been a fair employer who complied with the law he said: 'Yes'.

Rahul Goyal arrived from India on a student visa in 2012 and, until last week, worked for Bhushan at his Mt Albert store and another liquor store Bhansal used to own in Newmarket. He alleged he had to work unpaid for the first fortnight, then for $6 an hour in cash for three months after Bansal told him that was 'market price'.

He also worked for a time illegally on a visitor visa, before obtaining a series of essential skills visas to work in management roles for Bansal. Officially, these were paid at rates from $17.50 to $25.50, but in practice, Rahul said he was paid $500 and told to work seven days a week across both stores and a warehouse in Otahuhu because 'the store isn't making good money'.

He said he had to return up to $290 a week in cash to Bhansal. Rahul provided bank statements which showed some cash withdrawals of that amount after his salary payment arrived.

Such arrangements have been made in other cases to circumvent minimum wage and Immigration NZ requirements.

Rahul claims he didn't quit because 'I didn't have any option - all the liquor stores around here all know each other'. He said at one stage, Bhushan organised a visa for him which was attached to a different store in south Auckland, owned by another man. But he kept Rahul working at Mt Albert and said if he was ever asked, to say that he was only there to pick up stock.

​Rahul said when he complained about his treatment, another bottle store owner, a friend of Bhushan's, threatened him with deportation, so he went on sick leave last Friday and has been afraid to return. 'They think because they have got citizenship here and money they can do whatever they want,' he said.

Rahul provided a video of him talking to Bhushan in Punjabi. An interpreter told Stuff that the video showed the men saying he would agree to making a mediated financial settlement.

Rahul claimed Bhushan has offered him a settlement of $100,000 but thinks he is owed about $280,000 in lost wages.

Another former employee at the Mt Albert store, Sandeep Bansal, said he could confirm both Rahul and a second employee, Amandeep Singh, had worked well over their contracted 40 hours a week while he was working there.

And another former employee, who didn't want to be named, believed he had also been underpaid but didn't want to complain. He confirmed Rahul had been paid $6 an hour. 'Everyone worked 60-70 hour weeks,' the man said.

Amandeep Singh said he was paid $8 an hour when he began working at the Mt Albert store on a employer-attached visa as the store's assistant manager in 2014.

Amandeep said he was paid for a 40-hour week, but worked many more hours than that, and would be asked to repay Bansal cash in various amounts.

He said he was afraid to confront Bhushan about his underpayment. 'He thinks we can't do anything [to stop him],' Amandeep said.

Migrant Workers Association organiser Sunny Seghal said the union was representing over 20 liquor store workers in negotiations with five store owners - the union believed the Mt Albert case was one of the worst.

​Seghal said he'd attempted negotiations with Bhushan, but would now be filing grievances later this week with the Employment Relations Authority. He confirmed he had already reached a confidential settlement on behalf of another worker who had complained to the MWA about Bhushan.

He said all the cases involved young Indian migrants with visas tied to their employers. 'They are lucky if they are getting paid more than $10 an hour. This is a problem that has spread across the liquor industry, by keeping wages as low as $10 is how they are making a profit. I won't blame everyone who is running liquor stores, most are doing it legitimately, but there is a handful of unscrupulous employers who are exploiting workers and running this as a scam.'

The Labour Inspectorate confirmed it was investigating 11 businesses owned by another bottle store owner, Ravi Arora, who traded under the Bottle-0 franchise after three workers raised complaints of exploitation.

Super Liquor boss McMahon said the franchise had 178 stores nationwide and had terminated three other franchises and was investigating another over similar issues.

Rahul and Amandeep first contacted the Migrant Workers Association for help after seeing a video posted to Facebook by MWA advocate Sher Singh in Punjabi about liquor workers rights.

Sher Singh said the video already had 27,000 views and had encouraged more workers to come forward.

'The sad thing is [business owners] are learning from one another and the good thing is we are tackling this now to warn off those who are planning to do the same thing,' he said. 'In the past nobody has been willing to raise their voices. If we hadn't made that video, these guy would have forgot about it. We get asked a lot why did it take so long? The reason is they thought nobody was there to support us and there is nothing they can do.'