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Workplace sexual harassment is illegal. If it happens to you you may have a personal grievance claim against your employer.

Allegations of sexual harassment can also cause issues for the alleged perpetrator. 

For the employer it is essential that matters are handled correctly or they could face personal grievance claims from both the victim and the person responsible for the behaviour. For more details please visit our article about sexual harassment.

In the recent case of Uerata-Jennings v The Scout Association of New Zealand a senior Scout employee who treated Scouting funds as his own personal bank, by the unauthorised spending of over $20,000 of Scout money on his own personal expenses, was found to have been unjustifiably dismissed. The employee claimed that other employees also misused Scout funds in the same way. Because the employer didn’t fully investigate this claim until after the dismissal, the Employment Relations Authority found that the dismissal was unjustified – even though such an investigation would have made NO difference to the decision to dismiss.

For the employer, the good news was that the employee’s award was reduced by 90% because of his blameworthy conduct.

This decision is one of many recent ones that show that, no matter how bad an employee’s actions at work have been, if the employer gets the procedure wrong they will have to pay. For employers it is very important that your procedure is water tight. If you are an employer dealing with a difficult employee situation, or if you are an employee who feels wronged, please talk to us as we can help.

We were quoted in a  recent article on workplace racism. What has been your experience? Have you experienced racism, or other discrimination, at work? If you are an employer, have you encountered issues that were beyond your control? Please give us your feedback.

If you are discriminated against in the workplace this means that you may have a personal grievance claim against your employer.

Examples of illegal treatment can include being denied the opportunities, benefits or conditions of employment provided to other similar employees, or being dismissed or retired on discriminatory grounds.

Please visit our article on discrimination for more information.

Racial harassment is illegal. If it happens to you at work you may have a personal grievance claim against your employer.

Allegations of racial harassment can also cause issues for the alleged perpetrator. 

For the employer it is essential that matters are handled correctly or they could face personal grievance claims from both the victim and the person responsible for the behaviour. For more details please visit our article about racial harassment.

A problem we are often asked to deal with is the issue of discretionary employment payments. These can include payments for performance, pay rises, and various types of commissions and bonuses.

Often employees feel that they have been treated unfairly and denied payment for reasons that are unfair. Some of the reasons why payment may be unfairly denied include retaliation, trying to force someone out, business factors that have no direct relationship with the employee and their performance, businesses trying to save money at the expense of the employee, general bad faith, and management error.

With these types of payments the ultimate decision may be at the discretion of the employer, however, this is not the end of the story. The employer must act in good faith in assessing entitlements, and in exercising any discretion, and if they fail to do so this will help an employee’s claim. Verbal assurances, comparisons with other staff and other time periods, and your actual achievements at work, are all factors that can help your case.

We can usually help if payment has been unfairly denied to you. We have a range of tools to allow us to assess the payment you should have received and to allow us to help you claim your entitlement. Please ask us if you have any questions.

An Air New Zealand flight attendant claimed she suffered sexual and other abuse from a drunk passenger and that Air New Zealand mistreated her in dealing with the issues. The attendant claimed that Air New Zealand bullied her to withdraw her complaint, gave her an unjustified warning, and that an HR professional intimidated her. The issues raised were serious personal grievances; however, because the employee failed to adequately raise any of her personal grievance claims within the required 90 days, the Employment Relations Authority determined that she could not pursue her claims against Air New Zealand.

Although there are some limited exceptions to the 90 day rule, this case demonstrates the importance of complying with the 90 day time limit for raising a personal grievance claim. If you fail to do so within time then it probably won’t matter how good your claim is, you won’t be able to take it further.

Under Section 123(1)(c)(i) of the Employment Relations Act, payments made by an employer to an employee for humiliation, loss of dignity, or injury to feelings, are generally tax free. Being able to make tax free payments as part of an employment dispute settlement has benefits to both employer and employee. The employee receives more in the hand than they would have if they had received the same amount of wages or salary as a settlement. From the employer’s point of view less cash is payable.

In order for such payments to be tax free they must be genuine and not a recharacterisation of lost wages or salary. If the settlement contains a section 123(1)(c)(i) payment that in reality is wages/salary renamed as payment for hurt and humiliation this is a sham and the Inland Revenue Department can apply tax to the amount in question plus penalties and interest. The IRD can ask the parties to justify how they calculated the amount agreed under section 123(1)(c)(i). The onus of proof is on the parties to justify their position – not on the IRD.

In order to avoid later issues with settlements it is important for a personal grievance claim to be actually raised, and that the parties are represented so that careful consideration can be given to any tax free payment. The parties should avoid section 123(1)(c)(i) amounts that are almost the same as a month or two of salary as it makes the tax free amount look like a sham even if it is not.

Please ask us if you have any questions.

We have had several cases recently where our client (the employee) has been off work as a result of work related stress, often caused by a difficult manager and an organisation (including the human resources department) which backs the manager over the employee.

The employee is unable to cope with the thought of any return to a toxic work environment. Usually the fault lies with the employer or a work environment made toxic because of unrealistic demands or a manager with an unpleasant way of managing staff. Even where there are faults on the employee’s part, it is almost always possible for us to get the employee out of the situation with their reputation protected and a financial payout (including a tax free amount). No matter how bad your situation seems please talk to us before you decide to simply resign and walk away. We really can help.