Relief Carers Not Homeworkers
Last year a full bench of the Employment Court released a decision which fundamentally changed the landscape of some 27,000 relief carers in New Zealand. As things stood prior to the decision this significant work force had no employment rights and received what can only be described as inadequate compensation for the work they did. For example providing relief care for a full 24 hour period gleaned a relief carer a mere $75.00 from the Carer Support Scheme Fund; which itself is financed by the Ministry of Health and District Health Boards. That equates to approximately $3.00 an hour; well below the minimum wage.
Trial and probationary periods - know the difference
It’s unfortunate but all too common: small employers continue to make mistakes that cost them dearly.
A recent case saw a Mr L. start working for a couple that were running a bee keeping business. The couple believed they employed Mr L. as a trainee bee keeper but Mr L. said he was employed as a labourer. After nine weeks the couple dismissed Mr L. on the basis that he was unsuitable to work as a bee keeper. Just like that.
Circumstances do change
There have literally been hundreds of times that we have been contacted by employers who say they want a ‘casual’ employment agreement for their employee, or they want an updated agreement for their ‘casual’ employee.
When we get into it we regularly find that what may have started out, originally, as a totally intermittent arrangement between the employer and the employee where the employer was free to offer work occasionally and the employee could accept or decline the offer as they pleased, has now changed.
There's no such thing as instant termination
Without sounding like a broken record there is no such thing as instant termination. There is no such thing as an action that can result in someone being fired without the proper process being undertaken.
When performance doesn't meet expectations
The Rio Olympics ended up being one of our most successful Olympics ever. But for a time it looked like it was going to go pear-shaped. From the moment we woke up to learn our men’s sevens team had lost to Japan (most of us not getting up to watch the game given we were a shoo-in) we all started to get that ominous sinking feeling that things were not going to pan out quite as expected. Thankfully some of our less favoured athletes managed to ensure we came home strongly and our final medal count saw us end up in a very respectable overall position.
