It was discovered that staff working for Alps Travel were driving without the correct licenses.

A tour company whose staff were caught driving without proper licences has been stung for a raft of employment law breaches and ordered to pay $75,000 in penalties.

The Employment Relations Authority (ERA), in a determination released late February, found Alps Travel culpable for 153 breaches covering 30 employees.

These ranged from failure to keep proper time and wage records, failure to pay holiday pay and, in the case of one employee, failure to pay minimum wage.

JOHAN LOLOS A manager and a driver were convicted of fraud over the use of a false or borrowed licence to drive tourists around Fiordland, now Alps Travel have been stung for more than 150 employment breaches. (FILE SHOT)

Labour Inspectorate regional manager Jeanie Borsboom said the big issue with Alps Travel was its poor record keeping. "If you can't get that right, you're not going to get the rest right."

"Employees were working very long hours while being paid a daily rate, regardless of how many hours they worked. This meant they were not being paid minimum wage, and they were also left without holiday pay.

"This employer also failed to keep accurate time, wage, holiday or leave records, and made unlawful deductions from their employees to discipline them for things like bus damage or negative customer feedback – all completely unacceptable under New Zealand employment law."

IAIN MCGREGOR/STUFF Alps Travel used to have its headquarters in this Chinese restaurant in Christchurch's Upper Riccarton. (FILE SHOT)

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The company, which caters mainly to Chinese tourists, was recently in the spotlight after a joint sting by police and the New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) in 2016.

It led to five Chinese nationals working for the company being charged with using false or borrowed licences to drive tourists around Fiordland.

The company's former Queenstown manager, Xu Cao, was sentenced to community work last week after being found guilty of one charge of fraud in relation to aiding and abetting a driver to dishonestly use another driver's licence.

The driver, Suyan Qi, was found guilty of fraud. NZTA has since revoked the company's Transport Service Licence for both passenger and rental services.

The Labour Inspectorate started investigating Alps Travel after the company's then-Queenstown branch manager Li Xuqian lodged a complaint in October 2015.

The ERA determination ordered the company to pay Li $2842 in arrears after failing to pay him minimum wage, plus $74878.76 for unpaid holiday pay.

A further two employees complained in November 2015, leading the inspectorate to issue an improvement notice to Alps Travel in June 2016.

"The common thread of the complaints was that the employees were working very long hours and not receiving the minimum wage in respect of them, and that they did not receive payments for annual leave, public holidays or sick pay," authority member David Appleton said in his determination.

The notice required the company to calculate and pay arrears to its employees going back two-and-a-half years for failing to pay them all their allowances.

Alps Travel objected to the notice, but agreed to pay two complainants known only as Ritchie and Chris $12,578 and $7,225 respectively. It disagreed with the amount owing to Li.

Li estimated he typically worked between 8 and 13 hours a day when working as a driver/guide. One one occasion he claimed to have worked for 20 hours.

He alleged Alps Travel had a policy for drivers to under-record hours in their log books. The company denied this, however "the evidence suggests that one of the managers did instruct them to do so".

The inspectorate submitted to the ERA that there were 30 breaches in relation to not paying employees the minimum wage.

Alps Travel disputed this. Authority member David Appleton agreed there was no "cogent evidence" for the charge.

Borsboom said it was still figuring out how to get the company, which has more than 20 vehicles, from vans to luxury 55-seaters, to comply with the improvement notice and backpay its workers.

"There's still some outstanding issues we want to work through, but overall we think the authority's decision sends a clear message to companies that are operating in this way."

She characterised the breaches as "severe" and said other companies doing the right thing were being "undercut by a cheap and non-compliant competitor like this."

Appleton said there was no evidence the company could not pay the penalty and arrears to Li.

While it "presumably does not employ many, if any, staff it has a number of significant assets and the potential to bring in substantial income without any significant operating costs".

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