Underpayment, unauthorised deductions and a racialised remark all featured in the ruling
Coatrite Fire Limited unjustifiably dismissed a migrant spray painter and underpaid him for months, Authority member Marija Urlich found on 14 July 2026.
The worker moved to New Zealand on an accredited employer work visa and started as an industrial and intumescent spray painter for Coatrite in January 2023. His written employment agreement set his pay at $38 an hour. He was dismissed in May 2024 and raised personal grievances for unjustified disadvantage and unjustified dismissal.
Coatrite accepted the painter had been paid $35 an hour rather than the agreed $38, leaving wage arrears of $7,790.40. It said the rate had been loaded into payroll incorrectly and was not raised until the worker's father queried it in May 2024. The company also accepted it had not told him in writing before deducting a series of sums from his pay, recorded as company expenses, fines and equipment costs. Urlich found the underpayment and $968 in deductions were unlawful and had undermined his confidence in his employer.
The painter also said the managing director made demeaning racialised comments about his upkeep of the work vehicle. The managing director strenuously denied making them, though he accepted he may have used the language attributed to him and said he never intended to offend. Urlich found it more likely than not that a racialised comment was made, and that it caused the worker unjustified disadvantage.
A separate grievance concerned a warning issued while the painter was on leave. On returning to an email about the vehicle's condition, he was told to "Take this email as a verbal warning in mistreating company property". The Authority found the warning was a disciplinary sanction Coatrite could not justify.
The dismissal followed a letter alleging serious misconduct over his performance, timekeeping, care of company property and honesty. The worker said he asked for his father to join the disciplinary meeting by video call, but the meeting went ahead without him. He left believing his job would continue, and was told days later he was being dismissed.
Urlich found the dismissal unjustified on several grounds, including that the allegations were not backed by enough information for the painter to respond, that he was denied his support person, and that the decision-maker did not attend the meeting. The flaws were "not minor or technical", she found, and meant Coatrite had no reasonable basis to dismiss.
The Authority ordered Coatrite to pay $28,000 in compensation for humiliation, loss of dignity and injury to feelings, $18,240 in lost wages, and the wage, holiday pay and deduction arrears, plus interest. It imposed a $4,000 penalty for four established breaches of statutory duty, half of it payable to the worker and half to the Crown.
Coatrite sought to offset the arrears against losses it said the painter had caused. Urlich allowed only $200 of that claim, ordering him to reimburse parking infringements incurred in the work vehicle, and declined the rest. She also refused Coatrite's application to strike out his claims as frivolous and vexatious, finding the high threshold for that step had not been met.
