A BC restaurant company must pay three former workers the money they are owed.
It tried to fight it and lost.
The company is Bola Sweets & Restaurant Ltd.
BC’s Employment Standards Tribunal, which hears appeals about workplace pay rules, turned it down in three decisions on August 19, 2026.
The three workers left their jobs in September and October 2023.
Each one said they were not paid all their wages and overtime.
By law, the company had to write down the hours each worker worked.
It did not, the decisions say.
The company said its staff worked eight hours a day, five days a week, like their contracts said.
But it had no schedules from that time to prove it.
The workers swore under oath that they worked 12 hours a day, six days a week.
In October 2025, BC’s Employment Standards Branch went with the workers’ side.
It ordered the company to pay $206,909.92 in total.
That covers unpaid wages, interest and $11,000 in penalties.
The company asked for a second look.
It filed on the last possible day, after changing lawyers, and asked for more time.
Then it showed new proof: a staff calendar from January to August 2023, plus sworn statements from the owner, current staff, a nearby business owner and the owner’s son.
Tribunal member David B. Stevenson did not accept any of it.
Why didn’t the company share the calendar sooner?
It said the owner was going through a divorce, and the papers may have ended up with his wife’s things.
Stevenson said that was “simply not credible.” In other words, he did not believe it.
The new proof also did not match.
The staff statements said everyone worked 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
But the company’s own calendar showed some staff starting at 7 or 8 a.m. and staying as late as 10 p.m.
Stevenson said no to more time and said the appeals had no real chance of winning.
All three orders stand, plus any interest added since.
If you work shifts, write down your own hours.
In all three cases, the workers’ own word was the best proof there was.
We also covered Wicked Cafe, a Vancouver bakery cafe that lost its appeal over unpaid overtime and withheld tips.
