Pay your staff their entitlements this Christmas, says Labour Inspectorate

Thursday, 21 December 2017

New Luck Star restaurant in Auckland was fined $22,000 for failing to correctly pay 10 workers.

Employers have been warned to pay workers correctly this Christmas by the Labour Inspectorate.

The Auckland restaurant failed to pay 10 workers time-and-a-half for working on public holidays.

New Lucky Star was ordered to pay $20,000 in penalties and $2700 in arrears by the Employment Relations Authority (ERA).

This was the second time the Papatoetoe-based restaurant has been caught not paying staff correctly, with an improvement notice issued by a labour inspector to the business in 2015.

* Employer to pay $57k for failure of keeping wage and time record

* Employer in trouble again for failing to pay staff

Labour Inspectorate regional manager David Milne said this case should provided a good reminder for businesses during the coming holidays of their obligations, and that being a Christmas Grinch when it came to entitlements could prove costly.

'The Labour Inspectorate stands for fair workplaces and fair competition, and will not tolerate businesses failing to provide employees with at least their minimum entitlements,' Milne said.

'Ultimately this employer's breaches left employees working hard to sustain the business out of pocket, meaning they've had less to take home and put under their tree this year.'

Along with not paying time-and-half for public holidays, New Lucky Star and its directors Tony Ping Kwan Kwok and Yam Ching Wong failed to keep holiday and leave records.

The ERA said that while New Lucky Star had not deliberately underpaid its workers, that was the result of the the breaches.

New Lucky Star has paid all arrears owed by giving the workers an extra paid day off.