A food delivery company has been ordered to pay $43,000 for paying student interns for only half of the time they worked.
Woop, an Auckland-based food delivery service, offers its meal plans in 10 cities nationwide. The business is considered one of the four major meal kit companies in the New Zealand market.
Between 2016 and 2018, the business entered into agreements with three French tertiary institutions, engaging seven 'interns' that the Employment Relations Authority ruled were employees.
The company's director and majority shareholder, French national Thomas Dietz, said he set up the internship arrangement after having begun his own career in a similar fashion.
While the internship arrangements were compliant with the requirements of the French institutions, the authority ruled that six of the seven agreements were not consistent with one of the most fundamental tenets of employment law - the minimum wage.
According to the authority, the agreements required the six interns to "be present in [the workplace]" for 40 hours a week, but they were only paid for 20.
Woop claimed the six workers only did 20 hours of work each week - the other 20 hours present in the workplace did not involve them doing work, the company submitted.
Instead, the half-dozen interns undertook "self-directed on-the-job learning".
After initially denying the claim, Woop eventually conceded the workers should have been paid for 40 hours per week, and to have their holiday entitlements amended.
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