Told the work stopped for weather, they found others still potting plants
Two migrant nursery workers were told the weather ended their casual jobs, but Authority member Antoinette Baker found otherwise on 3 July 2026.
The two nursery assistants, both in New Zealand on working holiday visas, took casual roles potting plants for Queenstown Nursery Limited in early 2025. There was no written employment agreement. The terms sat in a run of emails from the company's sole director, who set the pay at $26.50 an hour and estimated three to four weeks of work.
The dispute turned on what "casual" meant. The director argued the pair were offered work day to day, with no obligation to keep giving them shifts. The workers pointed to an email sent on 6 April 2025, in which the director confirmed there would be work Monday to Wednesday for at least the next three weeks. On that basis, they said, they had turned down other opportunities.
On 15 April the director emailed to say the work was over, citing falling temperatures. The pair were told the company would no longer need them because "the temperature is starting to drop off." The workers said others on the site kept working after that date, and they later produced photographs of cars at the site and a colleague's payslip to support the claim.
Baker did not accept the day to day characterisation. She found the 6 April email committed the company to at least three more weeks, taking the work through to 23 April. The reason given at the time, weather, was not the reason later advanced to the Authority, which was that the two had been selected as less efficient than other casual staff.
Baker found the company had not raised any performance concern with the workers and produced no real evidence of one. Its explanation at the investigation meeting, that the work had to be redone, was vague and came second hand. She held the dismissal was unjustified and that the company had breached its duty of good faith.
One of the workers said the case was brought to stop other overseas workers being taken advantage of. The director, himself a former migrant, rejected any suggestion he had exploited them and said he had run businesses in New Zealand for years without a claim like this.
The Authority found the director's reply to the grievance was dismissive and could have added to the workers' humiliation. When they raised being unjustifiably dismissed, he wrote back within minutes: "If you wish to put in a complaint then go for it."
Baker awarded each worker four days of lost wages, calculated at eight hours a day at $26.50, a total of $848 gross each. That figure included Easter Monday on 21 April, which she treated as an "otherwise working day" under the Holidays Act 2003 because the roster ran Monday to Wednesday and nothing in the emails excluded public holidays.
Each worker also received $2,000 in compensation for humiliation, loss of dignity and injury to feelings. The Authority made no reduction for contribution and, with both sides unrepresented, ordered no costs. Queenstown Nursery Limited has 28 days to pay.
