Who is recording you?
Under the Crimes Act, it is a crime to record a private conversation that you are not a party to. The offence requires you to deliberately record people in conversation who believe that they have an expectation of privacy.
It is not, however, an offence to record a conversation that you are a party to. Despite this, the legality of recording conversations where only one party knows they are being recorded does get hazy in the employment sphere.
Dismissed for taking a muesli bar from a kid
Mr E was employed at a supermarket as a ‘loss prevention officer’ from November 2012. My interpretation of this job is like a security officer for food. Personally I’m not sure I could sit and watch people buy food all day, I’d get jealous. One of the required tasks of Mr E’s role was to monitor the cameras that overlook the self-checkout area to ensure customers were actually paying for the products.
The employee noticed a child in the self-checkout area eating a muesli bar, which he thought had come from the store. He called the supervisor in charge of the checkout on the floor to inform her of what he had seen. Mr E maintained that to do this was common practice and consistent with the training he had received. Seems like the logical thing to do, right? However upon being approached by the supervisor, the customer said she felt as though she was being accused of theft and made a complaint. As it turns out she had scanned the barcode for a box of muesli bars, and simply given the kid one.
Death to 'management speak'
When Mike King withdrew from the Suicide-Prevention Panel, he read a paragraph aloud from the draft suicide prevention plan and said “What does this mean?” I am sure many of us silently rejoiced that we were not only ones who had read a report and at the end of it thought that it said absolutely nothing, nada, zero, zip.
Snacks, Shoes & Supression
Let’s say you decide to walk out of the supermarket without paying for your snacks. Or maybe you attack someone on the street and steal their snazzy shoes (not speaking from experience I promise…). If you are charged with a criminal offence, are you required to tell your employer? If the offending is relevant to the nature of your job, then the answer is yes. Failure to inform your employer of any relevant criminal charges is a breach of good faith which can result in disciplinary action or even dismissal.
When a close shave gets a little too close
It’s no secret that New Zealand has one of the worst health and safety records in the developed world. In 2017 there have already been 16 workplace fatalities in New Zealand. However on the upside, as a whole, there has been significant developments in workplace health and safety in the five years since the Pike River tragedy. We now have a new regulator (Worksafe), new legislation (Health and Safety at Work Act 2015) and attitude and behaviour in workplace health and safety has improved considerably by employees, employers and directors alike.
