It followed weeks of missed pay and a group chat remark about the business taking out a loan
One text told an apprentice builder to start job hunting. The Employment Relations Authority has now ordered his former employer to pay.
In a determination issued September 15, 2026, the Authority found the apprentice had established two personal grievances against Elevate Builders Limited, a Wellington building company: unjustified dismissal and unjustified disadvantage.
The apprentice joined in April 2024 on a written agreement for 40 hours a week, paid weekly. In mid-July, his usual wages stopped. He was not paid again until September 3, and then not until a final payment on October 15, after his employment had ended.
He suggested in a group chat that the business might take out a loan to cover wages. The company’s director called to say he did not appreciate the comment. The apprentice apologised, and the determination records that the director accepted it.
Then came the text on October 1, 2024: “I think it’s best if you start looking for a new job…as we found more mistakes today.” The apprentice replied that he wanted the pay he was owed, or he would seek legal action. A written notice followed on October 6, confirming his employment was terminated effective October 1 for reasons the determination describes as “performance/misconduct.”
He says he had no verbal or written warnings about his performance or conduct. The company did not file a reply, attend the July 28, 2026 investigation meeting or provide evidence. The Authority said reasonable efforts were made to let it know, including a voicemail for the director, and the meeting went ahead without it.
The legal test asks what a fair and reasonable employer could have done, and the Authority looks at four steps: investigating the concerns, raising them, giving the employee a reasonable chance to respond and genuinely considering his answer. Because a dismissal had occurred, it was up to the company to show it met that test. The Authority had no evidence from the company on any of it and found the dismissal unjustified in both process and substance.
The Authority called it significant that performance concerns were raised only once the apprentice asked for his unpaid wages, and that concerns about his conduct first surfaced in the letter dismissing him. No evidence supported either, so it made no cut to the remedies for anything the apprentice contributed to the situation.
The second grievance rested on the unpaid wages. It was also satisfied the apprentice had not been paid any holiday pay, and noted the company produced no holiday or leave records.
Within 28 days of the determination, the company was ordered to pay $14,820 (gross) in lost wages for the 13 weeks before he found new work in January 2025, $15,000 for humiliation, loss of dignity and injury to feelings, and $13,696.39 (gross) in wage and holiday pay arrears. It must also pay a $2,000 penalty, all of it to the apprentice, and $2,000 toward his costs. The Authority did not separately establish a claimed breach of good faith.
The apprentice also asked for permission to recover from the company’s director personally any money the company cannot pay. The Authority said it could not grant that, because the director was not named as a party in the original application and permission was not sought at that stage. It said he may seek permission in a fresh application if the company does not pay.
The Authority found the wage breaches were more than inadvertent and that the company was at least negligent. It said the penalty was needed to deter this company and others, because “payment of wages for work done by an employee is a fundamental right that accrues to the employee.”
