A South Island travel company has had its transport service licence revoked and been ordered to pay $75,000 for 153 employment law breaches.
Alps Travel Company Ltd was also ordered to pay more than $35,000 in arrears following a Labour Inspectorate investigation, which began after a complaint from the company's Queenstown branch manager, Li (Kevin) Zuqian, to the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) in October 2015.
Two other complainants came forward the following month and the Employment Relations Authority decision said the ''common thread'' was employees were working long hours and not receiving the minimum wage.
They did not receive annual leave, public holiday or sick-leave payments, there was no 8% identifiable component of holiday pay included in their pay and Alps Travel would make deductions from their wages for expenses or other matters relating to their work without consent.
Labour Inspectorate regional manager Jeanie Borsboom said deductions were to ''discipline them for things like bus damage or negative customer feedback'', which was ''completely unacceptable''.
Alps Travel initially sought to avoid providing minimum standards by saying their workers were contractors but eventually acknowledged that was not the case.
''Employers in this industry should note that log books will not fully meet their record-keeping obligations, that they cannot contract out of providing employees with their entitlements, and that daily rates will not necessarily meet the minimum wage,'' Ms Borsboom said.
''Where the inspectorate finds employers seeking to gain an unfair advantage over their law-abiding competitors by breaching minimum standards, we will hold them to account, and we will be transparent in our dealings with these employers so consumers can make informed choices.''
The authority's decision said a forensic accountant was used to determine the arrears owed to Mr Li, who said the driving hours recorded in his log books were often less than the actual hours he worked.
''Mr Li said that this under-recording policy was ... introduced by Alps Travel and communicated to the drivers in the team meetings.''
Since the investigation meetings the general manager of Alps Travel's Queenstown branch had been found guilty of fraud in the Christchurch District Court.
The NZ Transport Agency had revoked Alps Travel's passenger transport service licence and the company now leased passenger vehicles.
The decision said Alps Travel was continuing to generate income from its assets.
Despite a submission that Alps Travel had a working capital deficit as at March 31, 2017, the authority said it was ''clear'' the company had a number of significant assets and the potential to bring in ''substantial income'', suggesting it could sell one or two of its vehicles to pay the penalty, if required.
