Trusted Touch Therapy Limited (TTTL), trading as Massage Centre in the Meridian Mall, went into liquidation in April.
Sarah Cockroft was the sole shareholder and director of the business, but a recently published Employment Relations Authority (ERA) decision said Ping (Patrick) Du ran it "as if it was at least to some extent his own business".
Yushan (Pamila) Jiang was employed as a reflexologist and moved from China to Dunedin with her daughter in September 2023, but within four months her new life was crumbling.
The ERA found she was paid incorrect wages, denied meal breaks and holiday pay and was ultimately sacked after a stand- over in a carpark.
Authority member Philip Cheyne said the vulnerable migrant had been deceived.
"Mr Du urged her to accept the job, saying it was a good business.
"That promise was false."
At his home yesterday, Mr Du spoke at length about the case but threatened to sue the Otago Daily Times if any of his comments were published.
Ms Cockroft did not respond to emailed questions by deadline.
Mr Cheyne’s decision said after a couple months of work, Ms Jiang received a letter and a new "casual" contract.
She was "pressured" to accept the documents because of her fragile immigration status.
During the ERA hearing, there was much focus on dates noted on paperwork which appeared to have been altered.
Mr Cheyne ultimately suggested Mr Du doctored
the papers when Ms Jiang filed her personal grievance in March last year.
Parts of Mr Du’s evidence were rejected and Mr Cheyne said he had to be "cautious" about other evidence Mr Du gave on oath.
In the four months Ms Jiang worked for TTTL, she was paid $8832, about a third of the $23,460 she should have earned.
The employers failed to pay her time and a-half for holidays worked and did not allow her meal breaks, the authority heard.
There was also "a complete record-keeping failure" until November 2023 whereby the company had no documentation noting Ms Jiang’s hours or days of work.
"I find the breach was intentional," Mr Cheyne said.
In December 2023, Ms Jiang messaged Ms Cockroft and raised concerns about her earnings.
Ms Cockroft suggested they discuss the matter in person and, on January 8, the worker was summoned to a meeting with the two managers in a carpark, which she recorded.
She told them she needed more work, but Mr Du and Ms Cockroft presented her with two letters — a letter of termination and her resignation.
Mr Du told her if she signed the latter without issue that would be the document shown to immigration authorities.
"If Ms Jiang disputed matters, they would show the first [dismissal] letter."
Ultimately, she signed both.
Mr Du said her job would be suspended from the following day, leaving her without income.
TTTL said it was justified in firing Ms Jiang because she had been "stealing company information" and she had "confessed the misconducts" and apologised.
The authority found there was "no reliable evidence" to support that claim.
Ms Jaing had been living with Mr Du during her employment, but two days before the carpark meeting, advised him that she would move out in three weeks.
Mr Du sent an email threatening various legal consequences for what he described as "her breach of the signed lease agreement", the authority heard.
This was not the first time Mr Du had been before the ERA.
An August 2022 ERA decision found he had sent emails that were "objectively harassing and inappropriately personal in content" to a female employee when he worked at a different massage parlour.
It also found Mr Du was partly liable for a litany of employment breaches, in which three "objectively vulnerable" migrant workers were underpaid, threatened, misled and sacked without cause and given illegal contracts.
In October 2022, the ERA ordered that company to pay Mr Du more than $45,000 in lost wages.
In Ms Jiang’s case, Mr Cheyne characterised her as "particularly vulnerable" as a migrant on a work visa.
He found TTTL intentionally breached its bargaining obligations — "especially regarding good-faith behaviour and recognition of the inherent power inequity"— when Ms Jiang was forced to sign the casual contract.
He ordered TTTL to pay Ms Jiang the wages and holiday pay she was owed, plus interest.
Ms Jiang was "isolated and unsupported" and had since become "very depressed and anxious".
Mr Cheyne awarded her compensation of $87,531 — including $40,000 for personal grievance, $17,160 reimbursement for the unjustified dismissal and $14,627 for lost wages — which had to be paid to Ms Jiang by July 30.
