Employee absent when claiming to be working…

The Employment Relations Authority has dismissed a personal grievance claim for unpaid wages from an employee who managed a hotel.

The employee claimed he worked 95 hours per week in the business but the employer was able to prove that the employee opened the business earlier and kept it open later than he had been instructed to do. 

They also showed that, on occasions he claimed to be working, he was in another town many kilometres away and on one occasion was building a deck on a friend’s property.

Although the employer could not produce wage and time records to show the hours the employee actually worked, it was the employee’s responsibility as manager to keep those records himself.

The ERA also rejected a claim that the manager was working when he slept over at the hotel as that was his accommodation and he was not on call.

Alan Knowsley