Six Pakistani workers claiming they were not paid for over two months, a £40,000 compensation award and a mystified Indian restaurant owner. These were the main ingredients in an unusual case which came to light in November.

The restaurant workers had come from Pakistan to work in two Tandoori Nites restaurants in Lucan, Co Dublin and Waterford. They told the Labour Relations Commission they had not been paid from July 8th 2000 to September 15th. The four Lucan employees said they had worked seven days a week, for 14 hours a day. The Waterford employees had worked eight hours a day, for six days a week. However, one of them had arrived last December and said he had been paid up to July.

Having sought an adjournment, the restaurant owners, Mr Shahid Sultan and his wife, Susan, did not attend the hearing. Because of this, rights commissioner Mr Colin Walker said he would take the word of the employees. He awarded payments ranging from £3,800 to £10,589 to the men, totalling over £40,000.

However, it did not end there. Mr Sultan told The Irish Times he was mystified at the ruling and his solicitor appealed the decision on Thursday. He claimed the men were only owed 31/2 weeks' wages, as they had not worked for the first few weeks after arriving in Ireland. "Some staff came and then they left and now this has happened. I cannot believe it," Mr Sultan said.

He said he and his wife could not attend the hearing because he was abroad and she had to go into hospital.

The matter came before the Labour Relations Commission again this week, when the men's solicitor claimed Mr Sultan had also breached the 1994 Terms of Employment Act because he did not provide written contracts. Mr Sultan's solicitor said he had provided such contracts and had lodged them with the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment when he applied for the work permits.

A decision on this, and on Mr Sultan's appeal against the £40,000 award, is not expected for some weeks.

The case highlights the need for workers to join unionised workplaces, according to Kieron Connolly, branch secretary of SITPU's hotel and catering branch. Of the branch's 4,000 members in Dublin, up to 15 per cent are non-nationals.

The numbers of foreign workers in the Irish catering industry continues to increase. Of the 22,682 applications for work permits this year, over one fifth of them were for catering jobs.

Mr Connolly said it was important that foreign workers became aware of their rights and entitlements. "In a case where, say, wages are not paid, that is very obvious to everyone but in cases where people are being discriminated against or not getting their entitlements, that's not as easy to see."

He pointed out that hotels such as the Jurys Doyle group, the Shelbourne and the Conrad had policies in place for foreign workers. "You have 30 or 40 different nationalities working in the Jurys Doyle group and they have a policy in terms of racism, and in their day-to-day dealings with foreign workers."

However, problems could arise when people came to Ireland to work in smaller non-unionised businesses, Mr Connolly said. "People may think they have one arrangement before they arrive here, and then find the situation is different. We always try to encourage people to join organised workplaces, no matter what nationality they are."