Cook at Indian restaurant underpaid and threatened with deportation
A cook at an Indian restaurant in Adelaide went unpaid for two years under the threat of deportation the South Australian Employment Tribunal has heard.
Pawanjeet Heir worked at Darshana's Curry and Tea House from May 2013 until 2015 and was paid for just four weeks of her time.
Working in horrific conditions, Heir was unable to take sick leave even when her appendix burst. Her lawyer estimates she was underpaid by almost $200,000.
Having emigrated to Australia in 2008 to study cooking and hospitality management, Heir completed her degree and began looking for a sponsored cook's position so she could stay in Australia on a 457 temporary skilled working visa.
She was offered a job by Kiranbahai Patel at the Darshana's Curry and Tea House restaurant and moved her family from Melbourne to Adelaide to take up the cook’s position.
The South Australian Employment Tribunal heard that Heir's pay stopped just four weeks after she had finished a short training period. When she asked the woner about money owed Patel told her she had to pay him $30,000 for fees needed by the Department of Immigration and the Australian Taxation Office or he would get her visa cancelled.
While details around the money are sketchy, Tribunal deputy president Stephen Lieschke agreed that Heir had been threatened with deportation, was refused sick leave and told to work aven after her appendix burst in 2015.
As well as not paying her wages, Patel also refused Heir's requests for sick leave and carers' leave, and she was even told to come to work when her appendix burst in August 2015.
Heir went to hospital instead only to find her visa had been cancelled while she was recovering.
The Department of Immigration audited restaurant owner Fusion India Pty Ltd and banned it from sponsoring any more visa holders.
Heir was not paid superannuation or eight weeks of annual leave on top of the unpaid wages.
Patel claimed heir was paid in cash and was an unreliable witness.
However, Lieschke dismissed documents presented by Patel calling into question the amounts claimed to be paid including a sum of $828.62 one week despite two-cent coins not having been used for a long time.
Patel will front the tribunal again to determine penalties.
Fusion India went into liquidation in 2016.
Heir's lawyer, Simon Bourne notes this saying, "It shows that it's not always a get-out-of-jail-free card, if I can put it that way, for directors or secretaries or business owners to wind up the company that employed their employee in order to get out of paying or meeting their obligations to their employees."
Heir will also take civil action against the owners.
Jonathan Jackson - 16-3-23
