Nobody's business but the Turks

An Iranian immigrant who was paid just $9 an hour while working up to seven days a week as a waitress has won an estimated $10,000 in backpay.

Zahra Barzegari was employed at the Little Turkish Cafe in Auckland's Karangahape Rd soon after arriving in New Zealand in 2009.

She worked 50-hour weeks, missed just 20 days' work in 11 months of employment, and was paid up to $3.50 less than the minimum wage, the Employment Relations Authority heard.

Two thoughts: (1)given that most of news stories in our media are not really news, bloggers of good will should emphasise those stories that are news, to redress the balance a bit; (2)this blog should have a restaurant guide, one that might be called "Where Not to Eat."

With these thoughts in mind, I bring you, gentle reader, the story of the Little Turkish Cafe, which turns out to be a little crooked cafe where a worker is exploited by the owners, who are not Turkish.

In other news - whiney middle class people:

Neville Waldren, 77, said he knew about the roadworks and had no problem with his Ford Falcon being towed - providing it was returned. "When I went out to get it I couldn't find it. I had no idea where it was. I sent someone out to look for it."

He found it on Friday after enlisting a neighbour's help and had had to use the bus.

So Neville, you knew that there would be roadworks in the street but you parked your car there; and so it had to be removed at ratepayers' expense. And now you are complaining that it wasn't put back and that you had to take a bus. Neville, mate, piss off.

In other other news, man from TVNZ makes really tastless metaphor:

TVNZ commissioning head Andrew Shaw said the call to pass on a second series of This Is Not My Life was due to commercial realities. "It's the hardest thing, which one of your children do you knock off? We have got to get something that works straight away."

Pausing only to note that many of the most successful shows did not work straight away, we conclude with two good shows by the Herald: its reference to Anika Moa and her wife (not civil union partner or lesbian lover but wife) and Deborah Coddington's opinion piece about justice.


Artwork by SITE, music by the Damned: