Section A - 7.5 Marks

Employment issues at Jason's fast food and takeaways

Mr. Jason Prasad is the owner and Manager ofJason's fast food and takeaways, a restaurant business situated at Lot 1, Queens Road Martintar, Nadi. As the family business grew Mr. Prasad hired Ms. Sera Naitau and Ms. Mary Cama to work at his restaurant. The duo work 7 days a week from 7am to 10pm. The agreement to work was made verbally, Mary is 17 years old and she left school just to work in order to feed her family. Mary's mom had abandoned her and her younger sister when they were in primary school with their disabled father, Tevita.

Their main duties at the restaurant include taking orders from the customers, cooking, buying groceries, doing stock take, washing dishes and any other activities that Mr. Prasad assigns to them from time to time. Most of the time, Mr. Prasad would ask Mary to carry heavy items such as gas cylinders, 50kg bags of potatoes, onions, rice and flour from their restaurant storage to the kitchen. In doing so Mary even suffered two minor injuries at work, which she did not report for fear of victimization and losing her job.

According to their verbal contractual agreement, the ladies had agreed that they be given 10 days of paid annual holiday, 5 days of paid annual leave, 5 days of paid sick leave and family care leave, no bereavement leave and 1 month of paid maternity leave. When Sera gave birth to her second child last month, she was allowed to take one month of maternity leave with half pay. They are both paid $2.50 per hour. Since both the ladies lack basic financial knowledge, they have no idea as to how much wages they are actually entitled to in a week and whether their Fiji National Provident Fund (FNPF) deductions were being made.

As a work benefit they are provided free lunch every day and the ladies are permitted to take loans from Mr. Prasad whenever they are financially constrained. Such loan is to be paid from their next pay through means of direct deductions. One day, Mary's younger sister became very sick and Mary had to take $1000 loan from Mr. Prasad to meet her sisters medical and hospitalisation cost. Since Mary usually receives approximately $260 a week, Mr. Prasad deducted $200 each week until the loan was fully paid. Sera and Mary recently visited a Government organised road show and were shocked to know that their employment rights have been violated. They have now approached you to advise them whether the actions of their employer are justified.

Question

You are to advise the ladies individually by addressing all the Industrial Relations issues being highlighted in the above case study. Explain in detail how their employments rights have been violated and possible actions they can undertake to raise their individual grievances with relevant authorities. Explain in detail what actions can both mary and sera take to resolve this issues