{"id":593940,"date":"2026-09-08T13:46:12","date_gmt":"2026-09-08T13:46:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/593940\/"},"modified":"2026-09-08T13:46:12","modified_gmt":"2026-09-08T13:46:12","slug":"kiwifruit-contractor-ordered-to-repay-migrant-workers-in-new-zealand","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/593940\/","title":{"rendered":"Kiwifruit contractor ordered to repay migrant workers in New Zealand"},"content":{"rendered":"


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New Zealand’s Employment Relations Authority has ordered horticultural contractor NZ Dream Contracting Limited and its sole director Gurpreet Singh to repay two migrant workers NZ$23,220 (US$13,600) following breaches of minimum wage, holiday pay, and wages protection requirements.<\/p>\n

Kulvinder Singh and Jaskaran Singh arrived in New Zealand from India in mid-2023 on Accredited Employer Work Visas. Although employed for administrative and machine operating roles, both worked as pruners in Bay of Plenty kiwifruit orchards, including seven-day working weeks and public holidays.<\/p>\n

Jaskaran received no wages for his first month of work in September 2023. The authority also found he was instructed to withdraw NZ$1,500 (US$880) and return it to the company to cover tax on his wages.<\/p>\n

Kulvinder worked up to 59.5 hours per week without receiving time-and-a-half or alternative days for work on public holidays.<\/p>\n

The authority rejected weekly timesheets supplied by NZ Dream as “demonstratively inaccurate and therefore unreliable” and instead relied on photographs, location records, and daily timesheets maintained by the workers.<\/p>\n

NZ Dream was ordered to pay Kulvinder NZ$13,101.65 (US$7,670) and Jaskaran NZ$10,117.85 (US$5,920) in wage arrears, holiday pay, deductions, and reimbursement of the cash payment.<\/p>\n

The ruling follows an earlier decision ordering NZ Dream to repay NZ$104,000 (US$60,900) to the same workers over pre-employment payments. Penalties and legal costs will be determined separately.<\/p>\n


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Frontpage photo:
\n \u00a9 Isabel Poulin | Dreamstime
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\n Source: stuff.co.nz<\/a> \n <\/p>\n


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\n Publication date:
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\n Tue 8 Sep 2026
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\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" New Zealand’s Employment Relations Authority…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":593941,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[111,43,139,69],"class_list":["post-593940","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/593940","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=593940"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/593940\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/593941"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=593940"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=593940"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=593940"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}