Five former employees of Auckland liquor stores whose minimum pay and holiday rules were violated are in the process of getting a total of $259,685 in arrears paid back to them.
Judge Kathryn Beck recently ruled that the owners of Nikhil Himalaya Group of companies – Ravinder Kumar Arora and his wife, Anuradha Arora – were liable to pay arrears to the former employees for failing to pay minimum entitlements.
Stu Lumsden, head of compliance and enforcement for the Labour Inspectorate, said this was a great outcome.
“This is money that they are rightfully owed and will be receiving it promptly – within a few weeks of the decision”, Lumdsen said.
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The Nikhil Himalaya Group and the Aroras accepted the breaches in minimum employment entitlements, arrears and for failing to keep records.
“The absence of records made it somewhat difficult to verify evidence in this case. So, we relied on technology to verify the evidence provided by the former employees,” Lumsden said.
DAVID WHITE/STUFF
Bottle store owner Ravinder Kumar Arora.
“Personal cell site data was used as evidence to quantify and prove the arrears of two complainants in the absence of any employer records. More sophisticated data analysis will be a tactic used in Labour Inspectorate investigations ongoing, to help provide evidence in the cases where records are unavailable.”
Ravinder Arora was also banned from being able to employ or be involved in employing anyone for 12 months from February 27.
Arora’s Bottle-O and Merchant’s Liquor empire once stretched to over 13 stores (as well as $36m of property).
A series of Stuff articles in 2020 exposed how Arora had failed 19 Labour Inspections in the previous six years, had confidentially settled with one employee who claimed he was owed $80,000, and Labour inspectors had forced him to pay out $30,000 to several more.
Six former employees all alleged they were paid as little as $7 an hour and collectively owed over $900,000 in lost wages.
One, Dharam Partap Bika, said: “It’s modern-day slavery, that’s what it is. He’s extremely rich, he has property and expensive cars, and he got it by exploiting migrants.”
And another, Arjun Chopra, said: “People treat their animals better than he treats his employees.”
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