Binny’s Kathitto: Canberra restaurant ordered to pay former chef $17,940
A popular Indian restaurant has been slapped with a big fine after the owners ran a dodgy “cash back” scheme for a migrant worker and threatening to have her deported when she spoke up.
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A once-popular Canberra Indian takeaway joint has been ordered to pay up more than $17,000 after a tribunal found its former owners had taken part in a series of shonky practices exploiting an overseas chef.
Binny’s Kathitto, a now-defunct Indian street food restaurant on Braddon’s trendy Lonsdale St strip, discriminated against chef Ninumol Abraham by making her work long hours of unpaid overtime hours and by making her return more than $500 of her pay each week in an illegal “cash back” scheme.
Ms Abraham worked at the restaurant on a 457 visa for seven months ending in mid-2019, and took former owner Rose Mary Thomas to the ACT Civil and Administrative Tribunal alleging she was discriminated against because of her immigration status.
Ms Thomas ran the restaurant alongside her husband, Binny Babu.
The tribunal earlier this month upheld the bulk of Ms Abraham’s claims.
Tribunal member Dominic Mulligan found: “I am satisfied that (Ms Abraham’s) immigration status was a genuine and not insubstantial reason for why the (she) worked longer hours than contractually obliged to without compensation and why she paid (Ms Thomas) $511.40 per fortnight.”
In an email to Ms Thomas, Ms Abraham wrote: “Binny, your husband has told me he is going to cancel my visa and me and my family (will) get deported … I am under huge stress and I haven’t paid my rent and (am) struggling to buy groceries for my family”.
Mr Mulligan said he was “not favourably impressed” by Ms Thomas and Mr Babu’s evidence about the “cash back” scheme, but said there “may be some truth” to their claims Ms Abraham had exaggerated her abilities as a chef and lacked dedication to her job.
Mr Mulligan said Ms Abraham was “honest, reliable and consistent” in her claims, which she first raised in an email when she was still working as a chef.
“I am satisfied that … Mr Babu did threaten the applicant, that unless she complied with his demands, she would be sacked with the consequence that her 457 visa would be cancelled,” Mr Mulligan said.
Ms Abraham’s failure to keep a record of the hours she worked — which she claimed was up to 70 hours a week — saw her awarded compensation for only five hours per week of unpaid overtime.
She was also awarded all the money she had paid to Ms Thomas under the “cash back” scheme, four weeks pay for being sacked without notice, and a lump sum for “embarrassment, humiliation and distress”, with the payout totalling $17,940.42
Ms Thomas is also banned from discriminating against any future employees as she did with Ms Abraham.