An amazing explanation as to why Leisure Clothing doesn’t pay its slaves
There was another hearing in court in the Leisure Clothing abuse case this morning. Just listen to its managing director’s explanation as to why the company doesn’t pay its slave-workers (quoted from the report in Times of Malta):
Regarding the wages that were being retained by the company, Mr Han told police the wages were deposited in the company’s general bank account. When asked what he would do if all employees requested their wages at a go, given that there were insufficient funds, Mr Han said he would have either asked the mother company to inject funds or else ask Bank of Valletta to extend the overdraft or for a loan.
So, Leisure Clothing doesn’t pay its employees, but says that it is ‘depositing their wages in the company’s general bank account’. The company’s general bank account is, presumably, the very one that wages are paid OUT of.
In this curious bit of sophistry, we are expected to believe the mad explanation that Leisure Clothing withdraws money to pay wages from its bank account, and then redeposits that same money in the same bank account as ‘retained wages’.
That’s a nice way of saying that wages don’t get paid.
Oh, and can we stop treating Han Bin as the culprit here? The man is a dogsbody for his employer: the Chinese government. He is a culprit, yes, but as a tiny cog in the Chinese government’s big wheel of human rights violations and abuse.
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http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20150121/local/leisure-clothing-managing-director-received-30000-performance-bonus-a-year.552816
Meanwhile, the priority is petrol and diesel prices.
Petroludiesel please.
So much for the new intake of “zaghzagh” at the very top.
Whoever invests in a business does so for some sort of gain, usually financial. If Leisure Clothing was forced to use the money which belongs to its employees, it means that it is actually in the red (I seem to recall something about there being an overdraft as well).
How long has Leisure Clothing been in the red and what is the Chinese government getting out of it if it is such a financial disaster?
Laughable were it not so tragic. And our government deems it fit to lick the boots of the Chinese government and sign multi million pound deals with the regime.
Were Malta not so far away geographically the government may be tempted to annex the islands to mother China in exchange of a few more crumbs and a couple of poorly engineered construction projects.
What about the tax and NI deduction which they MUST remit to the government or they will be accused of fraud?
Misappropriation of funds entrusted for a specific cause.
Fraud.
Who knows how many companies outside China work with this formula?
What is the possibility that the sum of Eur 250 million allegedly paid by the Chinese government to acquire 33% of Enemalta have been paid back into the bank account of the Chinese government to permit more future Chinese investment in the Maltese economy?
When I first realised that China was going to play a big role in Malta (I believe you wrote a piece about that, Daphne) I voiced my disapproval.
I was not only accused of being racist (please, I don’t hate the Chinese. I just dislike their government), but I was also told that I was being farfetched. “You think China are going to come to Malta and commit human rights violations?”.
Well, clearly on some level I was right.
It seems the Chinese government is behind illegal gold mining in Ghana .
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohrrE1rjzLo
i suggest we adopt one of Mintoff’s slogans and shout /put banners on PN clubs with the message: Chinese go Home!
Cannot tell the Chinese ‘to go home’ lest we risk them switching their power station ‘off’.
The exploitation of Chinese and Philippine workers seems to the norm even in Australia.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-01-22/manildra-457/6033054?WT.ac=localnews_illawarra
Retention of wages, except where ordered by a court, is illegal.