They argued the $215,000 penalty was excessive because the judge\u2019s starting point was too high, and it should have been reduced because of their financial situation.<\/p>\n
They also argued that the ERA did not recognise the support they gave their workers, including accommodation and immigration help; that the ERA did not take into account that some employment breaches resulted in no financial loss for employees; and that the vulnerability of the workers was overstated. <\/p>\n
Abdul-Jabbar and his company went back to court to appeal against the penalties from the first determination. Picture \/ Brett Phibbs<\/p>\n
Employment Court Judge Joanna Holden disagreed. <\/p>\n
She said the starting point for penalties was open to the authority, financial incapacity was not established, support given to employees was not a mitigating factor, and the employees were vulnerable. <\/p>\n
\u201cThere was a clear imbalance of power between the employees and Mr Abdul-Jabbar.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe plaintiffs took advantage of the employees as new immigrants from Indonesia, who lacked knowledge of local law and employment requirements in New Zealand. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe authority also noted some other matters that disadvantaged the employees; they were vulnerable workers.\u201d<\/p>\n
Holden dismissed the appeal by Abdul-Jabbar and RPL, saying, \u201cthe level of penalties is proportionate having regard to the multiple, systemic, and intentional breaches found by the authority, as well as the financial impact of those breaches\u201d. <\/p>\n
The Labour Inspectorate\u2019s southern region compliance manager, Brendon Strieker, said the court\u2019s decision reinforced that employers could not hide behind complexity or goodwill. <\/p>\n
\u201cThere will be consequences for those who choose to exploit their workers for financial gain.\u201d<\/p>\n
Abdul-Jabbar was a community and religious leader who acted as a spiritual adviser and mentor for at least one of the three workers he exploited. He was previously an imam at a mosque in Invercargill.<\/p>\n
Raphael Franks is an Auckland-based reporter who covers business, breaking news and local stories from T\u0101maki Makaurau. He joined the Herald as a Te Rito cadet in 2022.<\/p>\n
Sign up to The Daily H, a free newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"They argued the $215,000 penalty was excessive because the judge\u2019s starting point was too high, and it should…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":42051,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[37669,37666,37665,9092,95,6375,1656,7224,6286,37668,12026,2740,1874,305,42,37663,11517,5836,3429,43,19719,1523,2744,37667,37664,15488,40,38,41,39,3608,4478],"class_list":["post-42050","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-37669","tag-215k","tag-abduljabbar","tag-against","tag-and","tag-appeal","tag-company","tag-dairy","tag-exploitation","tag-exploited","tag-farmer","tag-former","tag-found","tag-have","tag-headlines","tag-imam","tag-loses","tag-lost","tag-migrant","tag-news","tag-ordered","tag-over","tag-pay","tag-penalties","tag-reza","tag-southland","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-were","tag-workers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42050","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42050"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42050\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42051"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42050"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42050"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42050"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}