Auckland worker wrongly accused of abandoning his job wins compensation after ERA rules dismissal unjustified
A New Zealand construction worker has been awarded more than $30,000 after the Employment Relations Authority (ERA) found he was unjustifiably dismissed when his employer falsely claimed he had abandoned his job during an approved overseas holiday.
ERA Member Matthew Piper ruled that the employer had dismissed the worker without justification, and then compounded the matter by failing to return his tools and withholding legally required employment records.
The employee had been working as a site coordinator for the company since April 2024, having previously worked for it as a carpenter.
In August 2024, the employee's manager approved his trip to Canada that would begin in January 2025. He was expected to use his annual leave for the first portion of the trip, then unpaid leave until he returned in late March or early April in of the same year.
The employee left his personal tools at the company's warehouse for colleagues to use when he left for Canada.
While away, the employee remained reachable and was contacted by the company about work matters on multiple occasions. He never resigned.
Returning to New Zealand
Upon returning to New Zealand in late March 2025, however, he messaged his manager to confirm he would be back at work but received no reply.
On April 7, the manager asked him to collect his tools. When the employee asked whether that meant he needed to find another job, the manager replied the following day: "Yeah we don't have work."
The employee then went to collect his tools from the warehouse, only to find the bins empty.
The manager told him they had been stolen. The owner, however, told the ERA there had been no break-in or theft of any kind.
The employee raised a personal grievance in April 2025, also requesting his wage and time records. The company never provided them, not even after being formally directed to do so by the ERA at a case management conference in November 2025.
Was the employee terminated?
The ERA found the employee "did not resign from his role" and that the employer did not take the steps required of it to attempt to contact the employee to find out if he was intending to return.
"Instead, I find [the employee] was dismissed from his employment when [the manager] told him on 8 April 2025 that there was no further work for him and he would need to find another job," the ERA ruled.
"The termination of [the employee's] employment was confirmed to him by [the owner] on 11 April 2025."
On the dismissal itself, the ERA found the company did not comply with any of the procedural fairness requirements under the Employment Relations Act, and that "no valid substantive reason for the dismissal was provided."
"Rather [the employee] was simply told there was no more work for him and his employment was terminated," the ERA ruled.
"[The employee] was therefore unjustifiably dismissed by [the employer]."
On the failure to provide employment records, the ERA found the company's non-compliance to be deliberate, having received the request and been referred to the relevant law without acting. A penalty of $5,000 was imposed, with $2,000 directed to the employee personally.
The employer has been ordered to pay the employee $13,270.28 in lost wages, $15,000 in compensation for humiliation and injury to feelings, and $2,000 from the penalty — a total of $30,270.28. A further $3,000 penalty is payable to the Crown.
