The Employment Relations Authority has upheld a personal
grievance for unjustified disadvantage following an employee requesting that he
be paid the wages he was owed for shifts worked. The employer’s response was a series of
abusive and racist texts telling the employee to return to his home country in
rather colourful language. In addition
to the failure to pay any wages the employer had required the employee to pay
it $250 for a uniform which it then did not provide to the employee.
The ERA awarded lost wages plus $2,250 compensation for
hurt and humiliation and also awarded a penalty of $1,000 to be paid to the
employee by the employer.
From comments of the Employment Relations Authority it
appears that the employee could have obtained orders for a lot more had he made
a claim for unjustified dismissal and/or had sought higher penalties or
compensation for the racist and abusive behaviour of the employer. Unfortunately the employee was self-represented
and may therefore not have been aware of the sort of levels of penalties and
damages he could have sought.
Alan
Knowsley
Employment
Lawyer Wellington
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