Gas station owner ordered to pay $60K for taking advantage of employee's immigration status

The owner of a Burnaby, B.C., gas station has been ordered to pay a former employee more than $60,000 after the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal found he took advantage of the young woman's precarious immigration status.

The tribunal found that Kuldip Singh withheld overtime pay from Harika Kasagoni for two years, and accused her of lying about an injury for which she had filed a WorkSafeBC claim.

Eventually, Kasagoni would lose her job at the gas station in Burnaby — a municipality bordering Vancouver's east — putting her immigration status in Canada at risk as she sought to transition from an open work visa to permanent residency.

The tribunal said Singh's practice of underpaying Kasagoni was related to her identity as a young immigrant, constituting discrimination against Kasagoni on the basis of race, ancestry, colour, and place of origin.

"As a newcomer to Canada, Ms. Kasagoni was not familiar with employment laws and minimum standards. She trusted Mr. Singh and counted on him. Mr. Singh knew this; he says he saw her like a daughter," tribunal member Devyn Cousineau wrote in her written decision.

"While this may seem like a nice sentiment, it can create conditions for abuse in an employment context, as I find it did here. It can allow employers to impose obligations on employees out of a sense of obligation, gratitude, or debt, outside of the contractual exchange of labour for pay."

Nearly $10K in wages withheld

Kasagoni began working at the Husky gas station in December 2013, a few months after she immigrated to Canada from a rural village in India, according to the decision. Cousineau noted Kasagoni was escaping an unsafe situation back home. While Cousineau did not delve into the details of that situation, Kasagoni argued she had escaped violence to come to Canada.

While she started at the gas station on a part-time basis, she was promoted to a full-time supervisor just two months later, according to the decision. Singh said she was an excellent and honest employee.

Over the next fourteen months, Kasagoni's wages were increased from $10.25 an hour to $23 an hour. But the tribunal found that during that time, Singh had withheld nearly $10,000 in vacation and statutory holiday pay, and overtime wages.

Kasagoni worked at the gas station without issue until December 2016, when she slipped and fell shortly after leaving work, causing her pain that prevented her from working for several days. When she told a doctor she had fallen in the parking lot of the gas station, the incident was reported to WorkSafeBC.

Singh alleged that Kasagoni was lying about falling on the premises of the gas station, and told her to withdraw her claim with WorkSafeBC.

Kasagoni told the tribunal that Singh accused her of cheating him, and threatened to withdraw his support for her permanent residency application. 

Ultimately, after Singh told WorkSafeBC that Kasagoni did not have a job to return to at the station, the situation did lead to Kasagoni's application for the Provincial Nominee Program, which would have helped her get her permanent residency, being closed.

The ruling noted that it was only through her efforts with provincial government agencies, like settlement services, to get that application back on track that she learned she hadn't been properly paid in the course of her employment at the gas station.

The tribunal ordered Singh to pay Kasagoni nearly $25,000 in compensation for lost wages, including the wages that she would have earned working regular full-time hours at the gas station if her employment had continued until December 2018, two years after her fall.

Singh is also required to pay Kasagoni $35,000 for discriminating against her.

Legal counsel for both Kasagoni and Singh declined to provide comment for this article.