He traded his bonus and super for a company vehicle, then got a lesser one in return
Swapping a Veolia engineer's five-seater double cab ute for a smaller replacement unjustifiably disadvantaged him, Authority member David Beck ruled on 12 June 2026.
The systems engineer, based in Queenstown, had built his pay around the vehicle. Back in 2007 he agreed to fold his annual bonus, superannuation, health cover, life cover and overtime into a package that gave him full private use of a company vehicle. A later variation valued that benefit at $18,000 a year.
For years there was no dispute over the vehicle. Veolia Water Services (ANZ) and its predecessor gave the engineer a series of double cab utes, the last a five-seater Mazda BT50 that carried no company signage. In September 2024 that Mazda was written off in a crash that was not his fault.
Veolia replaced it with a smaller Mitsubishi ute fitted with company signage and a GPS monitoring system. The engineer told his team leader it was a downgrade that did not suit his family, and later put his concern in writing, describing the Mitsubishi as a cramped two-door. "It is not a family vehicle," he said.
Veolia held its position. The company said the vehicle had been allocated correctly under its Motor Vehicle Framework, that the engineer's role sat in a "Technical Professional" category, and that the matter was not open to negotiation. It offered at one point to remove the GPS unit and cover the signage, but those concessions were never confirmed.
In February 2025 the engineer, through counsel, raised a personal grievance, saying Veolia's ongoing refusal to provide a suitable vehicle had unjustifiably disadvantaged him. Mediation did not resolve it, and he took the matter to the Employment Relations Authority, seeking a replacement vehicle, compensation for distress, reimbursement of foregone income and a penalty.
Beck found the company's vehicle policy was expressly written into the engineer's employment agreement, so the type of vehicle was governed by that policy. But he also found Veolia had treated the ute as a "Tool of Trade" while still counting its value against the engineer's pay, when the policy itself said the value of such a vehicle was "not part of a cost to the employee's total remuneration package". Beck accepted Veolia had applied its policy consistently, yet decided it had not acted as a fair and reasonable employer by declining to use its discretion to allocate a higher specification vehicle in line with past practice.
Because the engineer still had a vehicle for private use, Beck declined to award compensation for humiliation or injury to feelings, and he found no penalty was warranted since no explicit breach had occurred. He did find the engineer had lost remuneration from the time the new vehicle was allocated. The engineer had conservatively put that loss at $13,500 a year.
Beck ordered Veolia to compensate the engineer for that lost remuneration, being the value of the disputed vehicle provision from allocation and ongoing, in an amount the parties are to agree between themselves. If they cannot agree, leave was reserved for a party to ask the Authority to fix the amount. Costs were reserved.
