New Zealand’s Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) has taken action against a number of apple pack houses in the Tasman region for violating the employment law.
Six of the nine pack houses inspected by MBIE’s labour inspectorate staff in March were found to have breached the laws, with offences including the use of non-compliant employment agreements, failing to keep accurate employment records and failing to pay holiday pay correctly.
Labour inspectorate regional manager, Kevin Finnegan, said improvement notices would be issued in each case. The notices will detail the terms of the breaches and the steps necessary to rectify these, which include paying back any arrears owed to staff.
“The level of non-compliance identified during this operation was disappointing, especially the failure to have compliant employment agreements and time records,” said Finnegan. “These are basic requirements all employers need to fulfil to ensure they are providing staff with their legal entitlements.”
MBIE completed the inspections as part of joint audit with Immigration New Zealand and Inland Revenue to check for compliance with employment, immigration and tax laws.
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