The Employment Relations Authority has found employees
engaged to be “house parents” at a boarding school and on call overnight, were
working during those sleepovers. They
were entitled to be paid for the hours they had “worked” when on call at
nights.
This was because they were required to sleep in the
boarding house and not their usual accommodation, could not entertain guests or
go out and could not drink alcohol during the time they were rostered on. This was true whether or not there was
actually any disruption to their evening while they were rostered on.
The employees however, could only claim back six years of
unpaid wages from the time they filed their claims as anything before that was
barred.
In addition the school had changed its process and had it
hired security guards to be responsible after 10.30 pm to respond to any issues
in the boarding houses. After that time
any staff responding were volunteers and were therefore not entitled to be
paid.
That left a period of about 5 years which the school would
have to pay the staff for those nights rostered on which will be a significant
unexpected cost to pay in a lump sum.
Alan
Knowsley
Employment
Lawyer Wellington
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