A Hawke’s Bay based horticulture employer, Gautam Rajan Kapur, who breached labour laws in 2015, has again been penalised by the Employment Relations Authority (ERA).

He has been ordered by the ERA to pay more than $25,000 for employment breaches committed against four Singaporean women migrant workers in the Bay of Plenty.

The women worked for five days on a kiwifruit orchard in Pukehina operated by Joba Orchard Limited, but were never paid for their work.

The ERA found Kapur personally responsible for the breaches and ordered him to pay $18,000 in penalties ($12,000 of which will go to the workers) and $5,451 in costs incurred by the Labour Inspectorate during the investigation. He has also been ordered to pay $2,143 to the four workers in outstanding wages and holiday pay.

Notably, in 2015, the ERA penalised three Hawke’s Bay businesses, associated to Kapur, $22,500 for failure to provide employment records to the Labour Inspector. He is well-known in the Bay of Plenty and associated with at least 16 horticulture companies.

He has been also investigated by government authorities and banned from managing companies previously.

Later, Kapur had set up a sham business, Sunrise Hort Limited, in another person’s name to try and avoid personal responsibility for the exploitation, the ERA said. “Individuals cannot hide behind company names to get away with exploitation, nor can they blatantly lie about an employment relationship, as was the case with Kapur,” said Labour Inspectorate Regional Manager, Natalie Gardiner.

-TIN Bureau