"Wellington's Well Sushi fined after not paying 'vulnerable' migrant worker minimum wage"

The employment watchdog has ordered a Lower Hutt sushi restaurant pay $30,000 in penalties after it didn't pay a migrant worker the minimum wage and failed to pay for some of their leave.

The Employment Relations Authority found that Well Sushi failed to meet a range of employment standards which negatively affected a vulnerable migrant worker.

These were failing to keep accurate time records, not paying the minimum wage, not providing the full annual holiday entitlement, not paying time-and-a-half for holiday work and not paying for sick leave.

The business was ordered to pay $53,940 in wage arrears…

…to fork out $30,000 for the breaches…

The inspector noted the affected employee was a migrant worker on a work visa, sponsored by the business.

They said it made the worker "inherently vulnerable" particularly due to little personal experience of New Zealand employment standards and little ready access to support and information about those standards or enforcement of them.

The restaurant argued that penalties should not be imposed and that the breaches were partly "inadvertent"…

"The fact that the wage arrears in this case amounted to more than $50,000 is a sign of how much this employee was disadvantaged by his employer, someone he no doubt trusted."