Termination letter gave no reasons, and the Authority found there was no real restructuring process
On 15 May 2026, Employment Relations Authority member Sarah Blick ruled a supervised contact services provider unjustifiably dismissed a worker after dressing up a disciplinary exit as a redundancy.
Deborah Eyles worked for Bottlers Limited, a Ministry of Justice-authorised provider of supervised contact sessions between children and family members, as a Supervised Contact Visit Supervisor from October 2023. On 2 November 2024, while supervising a visit, she sent a text message about the visiting parent - using "a negative word" to describe them - to the parent's number by mistake, intending it for her supervisor. The parent complained, and Bottlers began an investigation.
Over the following days, Eyles was taken off rostered jobs, asked to write an incident report, and brought into a meeting on 8 November 2024. A second meeting was scheduled for 15 November. It never happened. On 14 November, Bottlers emailed her a termination letter giving two weeks' notice. The letter offered no reasons.
Bottlers later told the Authority the termination had nothing to do with the text message. Directors Melanie and John Budge said a July 2024 Ministry of Justice request for proposals on supervised contact services nationwide had prompted a review of workload and referrals, and that Eyles - the most recently hired - had been selected on a "last on, first off" basis. The company maintained it had not "dismissed" her but had given notice under the employment agreement, which provided for two weeks' notice if, "in the normal course of business, following a reasonable restructuring process", she was "made redundant".
Member Blick was not persuaded. The decision in Eyles v Bottlers Limited [2026] NZERA 300 found Eyles was never put on notice that her job was at risk, never consulted about the review or any selection criteria, and never given access to information or an opportunity to comment before the decision was made. "BL followed no restructuring process with Mrs Eyles whatsoever," Blick wrote.
The Authority also found the employment agreement's hours clause - recording only "TOTAL TBD HOURS per week up to 10 hours" - did not meet s 65(2)(iv) of the Employment Relations Act 2000, which requires an individual agreement to specify agreed hours under s 67C or, failing that, "an indication of the arrangements relating to the times the employee is to work". In the absence of compliant hours and any wages and time records from Bottlers, the Authority accepted Eyles worked an average of 17 hours a week in the three weeks before the incident, not the five hours per week she was paid during the stand-down and notice periods.
On the disadvantage grievances, Blick found Bottlers had pulled Eyles off the roster without consulting her, repeated that decision for a second week, and ran an investigation that "lacked clarity and notice around the process being followed and potential outcomes of that process". Eyles described being stressed, struggling to sleep and experiencing self-doubt after a termination she did not see coming.
Blick concluded: "Whatever the motive, or mixed motives, the termination was both substantively and procedurally unjustified when assessed against s 103A of the Act."
Bottlers was ordered to pay Eyles $1,560 gross plus 8 per cent holiday pay for the wage shortfall, and $20,000 in compensation under s 123(1)(c)(i) - $16,000 attributed to the dismissal and $4,000 to the disadvantage grievances. No deduction was made for contribution, the Authority noting the unjustifiability arose from Bottlers' failure to follow minimum statutory requirements, which were not obligations on Eyles. Costs were reserved.
