Omer IbrahimCRIMES (THEFT BY EMPLOYER) AMENDMENT BILLFirst ReadingIBRAHIM OMER (Labour): I move That the Crimes (Theft by Employer) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Education and Workforce Committee to consider the bill.I hear a lot of speeches in this House about crimes. This bill is a tough-on-crime bill. When employees steal from their employers they face serious consequences including possible imprisonment but when the employers deliberately steal money from their workers they can get away with it. The most the victim may get is the money owing but usually that doesn't happen because the victims are normally migrant workers who do not have the resources or the knowledge to pursue action against the thieving employers. Employer theft is an intentional failure to pay any kind of wages owed to their employees. This bill inserts new section 220AA into the Crimes Act 1961 which provides that an employer's intentional failure to pay an employee any money owed in relation to their employment is theft. If an employer is an individual the maximum penalty is either one year of imprisonment a fine of $5000 or both. In any other case the maximum penalty is $30000. This bill arises out of my own experience and the experience of many workers like me in New Zealand. I came here as a refugee and I was told that New Zealand was a paradise compared to the country from which I originated and a place where the rule of law will apply to everyone and where it's there to protect the most vulnerable. I soon found out that was not always the case. Not long after arriving in New Zealand I got my first work in the Wairarapa. It was farm work with my employer shuttling me from Lower Hutt to Martinborough each day for work. At the end of my first week of work I was told by a contractor that I had done a poor job that was not worth the cost of shuttling me to and from work and that I did not deserve any pay. I was told that if I had any decency I should be paying back the employer his costs for the week as the work that I'd done had amounted to nothing. I was told that I would not be paid and that if I did not like it then I should piss off. Not knowing what my rights were I just walked away from my payment for my week's work but as I became involved more with migrant workers I found out that my experience was not the exception. I found out that the problem of intentional theft by employers is rife in the low-paid casual sectors that rely on migrant labour. It is common for these workers to have the hours they work under-reported leading to lower pay or for the employers to argue down the work the employee has done. It is already against the law in almost all circumstances to withhold pay or deliberately underpay staff but the law is regularly flouted and there are no criminal sanctions.Without this bill the sanctions for wage theft in this country are very light. All you can get is backpay and a small fine. In Norway for example they criminalised wage theft last year. Thieving employers there can get a significant fine or a prison sentence from two years to six years. In the Australian state of Victoria the maximum prison sentence is as high as 10 years and a fine is $222904 for an individual or over $1000000 for companies. Some businesses rely deliberately and regularly on underpaying their employees and they have baked it into their business model. Serious criminal sanctions will stop this.The problem I experienced is also identified by an official report in 2019 on the exploitation of temporary migrant workers in New Zealand commissioned by the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment which found that wage theft was one of the most common forms of migrant labour exploitation in New Zealand. A few cases of wage theft have gone to the Employment Relations Authority but these are the tip of the iceberg. Let me mention a couple of examples. In November 2018 Jagran Property Services which operates both Crewcare Commercial Cleaning and the Green Acres Mobile Care Valet were ordered by the authority to pay $37000 for underpaying six members of staff. They were found to have underpaid six migrant workers by more than $17000. They also failed to pay minimum wage and holiday pay and had demanded a premium from one worker for his visa. In another example in February 2019 a migrant worker was found to have worked for 985 hours for no pay in Canterbury at a bakery. In March 2019 at around the same time that these cases were occurring three migrant workers were reported as being underpaid by a Bottle-O franchiser. One worker claimed to have worked 84 hours a week but to have only been paid for 32 hours which is equivalent to $7 per hour. There was no criminal sanction for any of these employers. In November 2019 the New Zealand Herald reported on a Waikato cafe owner who allegedly stole wages from staff in August of that year. After the cafe suddenly closed down the employer disappeared without notice. An employee who asked not to be named out of concern it would affect her job prospects said she was owed 32 hours of wages on top of unpaid holiday pay. Her boss had also deducted KiwiSaver and tax from her wages for the past two months but these had not been paid out.  'She blocked us all on Facebook on Instagram blocked us from the shop Facebook page changed her phone number changed her email. She ghosted us all' said the worker." In the aftermath the employee sought legal advice and was shocked at how complex the process was. She believed that this was a significant deterrent for others who had been victims of wage theft. This bill addresses that. It simplifies the process significantly by making it a criminal offence as it should be. It also means that those employers who steal from their employees face criminal penalties just like any other thief. That means employers are deterred from stealing wages rather than employees being deterred from claiming their rights. It also sends a strong message of disapproval to bad employers. This does not impose any new obligations on businesses. It only applies to those who intentionally do not pay their employees. Businesses are already required to provide back-pay after complex civil proceedings if they do not do this; the problem is too many bad employers rely on the complexity of the system to avoid enforcement. Those employers who commit wage theft are gaining commercial advantage over competitor employers by deliberately not observing the minimum legislated employment standards.Dawn Duncan a lecturer at the University of Otago's Faculty of Law told the New Zealand Herald in November 2019 that wage theft was most common in New Zealand's hospitality industry. This was the same point made by the Employment Relations Authority in the 2018 decision in the case of Jagran Property Services: "These types of businesses not only exploit vulnerability. They also undermine legitimate businesses who are doing the right thing by their workers and start a 'race to the bottom'." Just as has occurred in other jurisdictions around the world it's time that we recognise the intentional theft of worker wages as a crime. Since my bill was drawn from the ballot I have received many messages and emails from workers who have been subject to wage theft. One of them told me of her experience. She's a young woman. She was young and living in poverty and she did not have a strong understanding of her rights in the complex system. She was living pay cheque to pay cheque doing physical labour for a small construction company. However her health declined and she asked her boss for time off with a medical certificate. When her condition got quite extreme he told her she had to come back to work and when she refused he fired her. He never paid for the work that she had done before he fired her. He never compensated her for transport costs incurred during the work. She told me "I was living on the mattress on the floor of a living room in an old and tiny apartment shared with three other people. I could not afford to lose these wages." Trying to navigate a complex system she went to mediation and her employer just laughed and offered a $100 goodwill payment. He knew the system; she didn't. She could not afford the lawyer or the risk of having to pay for one if she took him to court. She felt abused and humiliated. Stories like hers are too many. I would like to thank at the end of this the Council of Trade Unions for their support Peter Cranney John Ryall and my good friend Camilla Belich for her support in this bill. This is a good bill. I commend it to the House."