A workplace chat app became the battleground for a dispute that ended in an ERA ruling
A Chinese national working at a Christchurch massage business has been awarded more than $8,500 after being threatened with physical violence by a colleague over a workplace chat app and then pressured into apologising for her role in the dispute.
The Employment Relations Authority (ERA) issued its determination on 16 September 2026, ruling that the second employer had mishandled the masseuse's bullying complaint in a way that left her feeling unsafe and cost her rostered hours.
The first employer was also found to have underpaid the worker throughout her earlier employment.
WeChat row becomes workplace matter
The chain of events began on the evening of 6 November 2023, when the worker sent her manager a private message on WeChat raising concerns about a colleague's conduct at a nearby sushi shop.
Receiving no immediate reply, the worker escalated the matter to a WeChat work group that included the colleague in question.
The exchange deteriorated quickly. After both workers were removed from the group chat, the colleague sent the worker direct messages threatening to "slap [her] face twice", "punch [her] in the face" and "hit [her] immediately", adding that they did not care if those acts led to imprisonment.
The worker took the threats seriously and forwarded screenshots to the manager that same evening. By 9 November, she had been moved to a different store. An apparent apology from the worker followed on 10 November, which the colleague accepted. The manager considered the matter closed.
The worker did not. She covertly recorded a phone call with the manager on 16 November 2023, in which she put to him that he had forced her apology, reduced her rostered hours, and still not addressed the threats against her.
That same day, she formally raised a personal grievance in writing. The second employer responded on 29 November, rejecting her concerns on the basis that the dispute was a private matter unrelated to the company's affairs.
Employer's inadequate response
ERA Member Robert Davies found that response inadequate. While he accepted that the manager's initial interventions, such as separating the workers and instructing them to stop, were reasonable given the conflict's rapid onset, he found the employer had lost control of the situation thereafter.
"There was no investigation into [the worker's] concerns about the colleague's threats of violence," Davies wrote. "Instead, there was a strong desire for the problem to just go away."
Davies further found that the manager had pressured the worker into apologising "in the mistaken belief doing so would help both to save face," and that this requirement was "both unfounded and unreasonable."
The ERA awarded the worker $2,574.18 in lost wages, accepting her estimate that a shift in her working pattern following the incident was more likely attributable to unresolved safety fears than her own conduct.
A further $2,000 in hurt and humiliation compensation was reduced by half, however, after Davies found the worker had contributed to the situation by escalating the private dispute into the work group chat.
On wage arrears, both companies were found to have misinterpreted their own employment agreements, failing to pay the worker a commission bonus on top of her minimum hourly wage. The first employer was ordered to pay $3,006.29 and the second $2,016.70.
The companies' controlling figure was made personally liable for those arrears should either company fail to pay. Each company was also fined $5,000, payable to the Crown.
