What started as a toilet-cleaning request ended in the Employment Court
A New Zealand supermarket's dismissal of a Ukrainian worker over a toilet-cleaning dispute has cost the business more than $12,000.
The judgment, handed down on 25 March 2026 by the Employment Court of New Zealand, examined a case involving a leave dispute, an unplanned suspension, and a health and safety refusal.
Nadiia Petersen was a part-time employee at Gorrie's Supermarket in Edgecumbe from November 2023. The employer, Edgecumbe Supermarket Limited, employs approximately seven staff and is run by managing director D Gorrie. In about April 2024, Petersen sought leave to travel to Ukraine to visit family members who had not yet met her young son. Her family was also grieving her older brother, killed in the conflict with Russia.
The two sides disagreed on whether leave was formally approved. Gorrie said he recalled telling Petersen she was not entitled to annual leave. Petersen maintained he verbally approved the trip, joking he would like her to bring back a "blondie" in exchange. At the hearing, Gorrie suggested this was a reference to a Ukrainian beer of that name; Petersen did not take it that way. The Court accepted Petersen's account on the balance of probabilities, finding the June 2024 conversation led her to understand that leave had been granted and she was not required to resign to take the trip.
At the Authority stage, Edgecumbe Supermarket had also argued Petersen was a casual employee rather than permanent, a position it no longer contested by the time the matter reached the Employment Court.
The dispute came to a head on 31 July 2024. The supermarket was preparing for a visit from Foodstuffs in Auckland. Gorrie asked Petersen to clean the staff toilets. She refused, citing hygiene concerns: there was no hygiene policy in place, no spare uniforms, and no adequate cleaning equipment or supplies. She also noted that other staff had declined the same task.
A confrontation followed. Gorrie described Petersen as becoming hysterical, behaving like a child, yelling and screaming. She disputed that account, alleging Gorrie threatened she would have no job when she came back from leave if she did not comply. Gorrie told her to leave, asked for her uniform back, and warned he would issue a trespass notice if she did not go. Petersen left, concluding her employment had ended. The company paid her final pay on 8 August 2024. After returning from Ukraine, she had no work for approximately three weeks before securing another job.
Edgecumbe Supermarket maintained that no dismissal had occurred, arguing Petersen had effectively resigned by going to Ukraine. The Court rejected that argument, finding she had been both unjustifiably suspended and unjustifiably dismissed on 31 July 2024. On the health and safety question, the judgment noted that "there was a failure to appropriately engage about them and the ways they could be addressed" before matters escalated. Her employment agreement expressly gave her the right to raise health and safety concerns and to refuse unsafe work.
The Court also found that Petersen contributed to how the dispute unfolded. The Authority had awarded $10,000 for distress compensation before applying a 10 percent reduction for her contributing behaviour, bringing that figure to $9,000. The Court upheld that reduction, noting that "the employee also has an obligation to communicate constructively and aim to maintain a positive employment relationship."
Edgecumbe Supermarket was ordered to pay $1,776.88 in lost wages, holiday pay, and KiwiSaver contributions, $9,000 in distress compensation, and $1,250 in costs.
The case illustrates how quickly undocumented practices become costly: disputed verbal leave approvals, the absence of a suspension procedure, and a failure to engage with a health and safety concern each contributed to the outcome.
