Worker wins €86k but no sign of the money

IN a country laden down with debt, Muhammad Younis feels the weight as much as anyone. Worse again, he doesn’t owe a penny.

Instead, Muhammad is owed €86,000, as ruled on by the Labour Court last September. It found that he had been grossly exploited for years when he worked 77-hour weeks for below the minimum wage at a popular Indian restaurant.

He has never seen a cent of the cash. A 57-year-old father from Jalem in Pakistani Punjab, he will spend Christmas in Ireland in his city centre lodgings, still wondering when he will get what he is owed.

Speaking through an interpreter in the offices of the Migrant Rights centre of Ireland (MRCI), Muhammad said that just before coming to Ireland people had approached him and urged him to come, telling him that he would have money and would be able to provide a better life for his children.

“The day he arrived he was not told what his actual job was in the kitchen, so he had to do a lot of work like washing the dishes, work he is not supposed to do as a tandoori chef.

“For the first year he was not paid well, he has to ask or request his boss to give him money and his salary. ”

The situation deteriorated, to the extent where his work permit and then his passport expired, and attempts by Muhammad to get his employer to facilitate the updating of both were met with threats of deportation or jail.

He ended up staying in a house with other staff, working for weeks on end, seemingly all day, every day.

He was paid almost €5,000 over the first two-and-a-half years. He kept asking for holidays but only ever got December 25 off.