Vietnamese worker claims she received €1.70 for almost 4 hours overtime

A Vietnamese former employee of Leisure Clothing told a court today that her overtime earnings for hours worked between 5:45pm and 9:30pm amounted to just €1.70 per overtime session. She added that she could not refuse to work the extra hours.

The compilation of evidence against Bin Han and Jia Liu continued this morning before Magistrate Carol Peralta.

Bin and Jia stand charged with human trafficking and the exploitation of Chinese and Vietnamese workers at the Leisure Clothing factory in Bulebel. Bin, who has Maltese nationality, is the company's managing director while Jia is the marketing director.

The two are also charged with misappropriating the employees' wages, failing to pay the employees their wages, overtime and allowances and failing to comply with employment law.

John Calleja, an inspector from the Employment Training Corporation, exhibited documents relating to nine workers, eight of which were Vietnamese.

He explained that the corporation had been requested to present documents of 10 people but one Vietnamese person was not traced on their database.

After over three hours of testimony, Magistrate Carol Peralta suspended the hearing, reprimanding the prosecution for not yet presenting any proof supporting the primary accusation, that of human trafficking.

Testifying in today’s marathon sitting, Nguyen Thi Hien, a Vietnamese seamstress who claims to have been trafficked by the company, told the court how she was met at the airport by a couple who took her passport and transported her to her accommodation in Hal Far.

She was told to share a room with another Vietnamese worker. The room had a TV, wardrobe, shower but the toilet was shared with another room.

She said that she had no free time. However when the magistrate then asked her whether she was allowed to leave the factory, she said she was and had gone to visit the market on her days off. After this was pointed out to her, she clarified that on her working days she did not have any free time, but she was granted alternate Sundays off.

For the first two weeks she worked 12-hour shifts, three times a week, and from 7am to 5:45pm for two days. Sunday working hours were from 8am to 6pm, said Nguyen.

One of her friends had introduced her to an agent who told her about the Leisure Clothing job, saying it had a high wage. They said the fee to come to Malta was $4500, and the 30-month contract included food and accommodation.

She said that the agency had shown her a sample contract, which she exhibited in court. After that, she was introduced via webconference to two Chinese workers who described their conditions and told her how good a place Malta was to live in.

She was shown pictures of the workplace and living arrangements and was shown the payslips of previous workers. She saw the wage was around €600 but was told that it was just a sample and her wage could be as high as €700. 

She also underwent job-related proficiency tests in Hanoi. 

She returned to the agency and paid $500 and was promised that after three months she would be in Malta, as long as she paid the remaining $4000 in that three-month period.

Nguyen subsequently changed her mind and wanted to go to Taiwan to work with another company, however the agent said her work was very good and offered to reduce the fee to $3000. She was told that such an opportunity was very rare, and was convinced to reconsider. The fee, she said, “included air tickets and expenses”.

It emerged that the agent had instructed her not to study Chinese or English too much, saying “no need to know a lot or you will fight with the boss”. She claimed to have one contract in Vietnamese and another in Vietnamese and Chinese, both between her and Han Bin. The two contracts were “totally different “ from each other.

The agent said not to worry about what she had signed, and that when she would be in Malta things would be better. The agent allegedly told her that the actual wage would be higher than that stipulated in the contract.

The magistrate asked her whether she paid the $3500 fee to Leisure Clothing or to the agent. She replied that it was the latter. The magistrate then asked her whether the agent was also going to charge her a fee to apply for work in Taiwan, to which she replied in the affirmative.

From her testimony it emerged that the first contract she signed was between herself and the Vietnamese agent, and the second contract was between herself and Leisure clothing, however they were both signed on the same day.

The magistrate requested her to confirm this several times. He pointed out that there are very great differences in the salaries in the two contracts and asked her to tell the court once more, why she had agreed to sign the other contract.

The witness explained that she had already forked out a considerable sum of money to them by that point. She added that at one point she had changed her mind and tried to withdraw from the agreement, however when she told the agent, they threatened to hold her liable for all the expenses for the visas, agency fees and other costs incurred up to then.

The magistrate asked her if her payslips tallied with the hours she had worked. She said they did not. He asked her if she had complained to the management in her 20 months of working there.

“We all know the system by now: they kept the money, gave her spending money and so on, did she ever complain to the management that she was not receiving her full wage?” he asked. She said she had complained that they kept all the money and only allowed her €150 to spend.

The magistrate however noted from her payslip that from April to November 2014, she had earned over €4000, an amount which she confirmed, explaining that overtime was included in the wage on her payslip.

The case will continue in January.

Lawyer Pio Valletta appeared for the accused, while Inspector Joseph Busuttil and Sylvana Briffa prosecuted.

Lawyers Karl Briffa, Katrine Camilleri and Michael Camilleri appeared parte civile for the workers.