No agreement, no records, no KiwiSaver, no show - now, no choice but to pay
A New Zealand waterblasting and fumigation company has been ordered to pay a former worker more than $33,000 in wage arrears, interest, and costs - plus an additional $8,000 in penalties - after it failed to show up at any stage of employment authority proceedings.
The determination, handed down on October 23, 2026, found Waterblasting and Fumigation Services Limited (WFSL) had breached three separate pieces of employment legislation across almost every basic obligation an employer owes a worker.
No agreement, no records, no response
The worker was employed by the family-run company from November 25, 2019, to January 31, 2025. He never received a written employment agreement. The job was offered and accepted verbally.
He worked at least 40 hours a week, often six days, and sometimes every Saturday in a month. His hourly rate started at $25.00 and reached $27.00 by the time he left. Wages were paid weekly into his bank account with PAYE deducted.
There was no formal leave process. He would ask one of the directors verbally for time off. When he requested his leave balances, one director told him to "just put his leave application in." He never received them.
The company's three directors are a husband and wife - equal shareholders - and their son.
Then came the paper trail
Before lodging his claim, the worker received handwritten notes from the company showing his hours over nine months and what he had been paid in net amounts. He cross-referenced those against his bank records.
The numbers did not match.
He also received purported "payslips" through his former advocate - documents he told the Authority he had never seen before. He had not been given payslips during his employment, and his advocate had not forwarded copies of what the company had provided.
From there, the worker built his case. He compiled a detailed schedule of his wage arrears, obtained Inland Revenue records of his earnings, and converted net figures to gross using information from the IRD website. He gave his evidence under affirmation. It was not contested.
The company that wasn't there
WFSL's absence from the process was total.
The claim was served by tracked courier in April 2026. The company's reply was due by April 21. None was filed. The Authority gave the company until June 10 to apply for an extension. Nothing came.
A case management conference was held on June 23. WFSL did not attend. The Authority directed it to provide employment records - wage and time records, holiday and leave records, any employment agreement, payslips, leave policies, and final pay documentation.
None of it was provided, even after the deadline was extended.
The investigation meeting itself was delayed by 30 minutes to give the company extra time to turn up. It did not.
Because the company failed to produce compliant employment records, the Authority was entitled under statute to accept the worker's evidence about his hours, days worked, and pay. That evidence had not been shown to be incorrect, and WFSL had been warned that if it did not participate, it would be unable to challenge the worker's account.
What the numbers added up to
The Authority found the worker was owed $30,971.86 in total wage arrears, broken down as follows: $2,362.00 for two weeks he was not paid at all; $595.87 in shortfalls across seven weeks where his bank deposits fell short of what the company's own handwritten records said he should have received; $432.00 for two unpaid alternative holiday days he earned by working on Easter Monday and the King's Birthday in 2024; $16,679.92 in annual holiday pay arrears; and $10,902.07 in unpaid KiwiSaver compulsory employer contributions spanning the entire five-year employment period.
On annual leave, the worker had built up 20 weeks of entitlement between November 2019 and November 2024. He used seven. When he left, he was not paid out for the remaining 13. The company had also deducted annual leave from his balance without asking him and without his consent - something the Authority found was a unilateral breach of the Holidays Act.
On KiwiSaver, the company had not made a single compulsory employer contribution for the entire time the worker was employed. Because there was no written agreement allowing the contributions to be paid on a total remuneration basis, the three per cent employer contribution applied on top of his agreed hourly rate. According to IRD records, the worker earned $343,933.62 gross over his second employment period. Three per cent of that came to $10,318.00, and with additional holiday pay on those arrears, the total KiwiSaver-related liability reached $10,902.07.
Interest of $2,238.42 was awarded from the worker's last day of employment to the date of the determination, with interest continuing to run until full payment.
Four breaches, four penalties
The Authority found the company breached its good faith obligations, its duty to provide a written employment agreement, its obligation to keep wage and time records, multiple provisions of the Holidays Act covering annual leave and alternative holidays, and the requirement under the Wages Protection Act to pay wages without deduction.
The breaches were characterised as negligent. The Authority noted the company's directors appeared to have been running the business "without regard to its employment law obligations."
After grouping related breaches together, the Authority identified four penalty-attracting categories. The potential maximum was $80,000. The penalty imposed was $8,000 - split between the employment agreement and records failures ($1,000 each), the Wages Protection Act breaches ($3,000, driven by the complete failure to pay any KiwiSaver contributions over five years), and the Holidays Act breaches ($2,000).
Penalties are payable to the Crown, not the worker.
All told, WFSL was ordered to pay the worker $33,210.28 within 28 days - made up of $30,972.08 in wage arrears, $571.55 in legal costs and disbursements, and $2,238.42 in interest. The $8,000 penalty is payable separately.
The determination noted that if the company fails to comply, the worker may apply for a compliance order and seek leave to recover the amounts from the directors personally.
For HR teams, this case is a practical catalogue of what happens when basic compliance infrastructure - written agreements, proper records, correct pay runs, KiwiSaver remittances - simply does not exist. The personal liability pathway for directors makes it more than an abstract compliance risk.
