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Employment Relations Act 2000

Personal grievances, disputes, and enforcement - Personal grievances

111: Definitions relating to personal grievances

You could also call this:

“This part explains what certain words mean when talking about problems at work.”

In your employment agreement, certain terms have specific meanings as defined by the law. These terms include personal grievance, discrimination, sexual harassment, adverse treatment in employment of people affected by family violence, racial harassment, duress, adverse conduct for prohibited health and safety reason, and retaliate.

The law explains what these terms mean in sections 103, 104, 105, 106, 107, 108, 108A, 109, 110, 110A, and 110B. Your employment agreement must use these meanings unless it gives a broader definition to any of these terms.

If you want to know exactly what these terms mean, you can look at the sections of the law mentioned above. It’s important to understand these terms because they relate to problems you might face at work and your rights as an employee.

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View the original legislation for this page at https://legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1986/0120/latest/link.aspx?id=DLM60344.

Topics:
Work and jobs > Worker rights
Rights and equality > Anti-discrimination
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110B: Retaliation against whistleblower, or

“When an employer punishes someone for speaking up about wrongdoing at work”

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112: Choice of procedures, or

“ You can choose to complain about unfair treatment at work or to the Human Rights Commission, but not both. ”

Part 9 Personal grievances, disputes, and enforcement
Personal grievances

111Definitions relating to personal grievances

  1. Each of the terms personal grievance, discrimination, sexual harassment, adverse treatment in employment of people affected by family violence, racial harassment, duress, adverse conduct for prohibited health and safety reason, and retaliate have in any employment agreement the meanings given to those terms by sections 103, 104, 105, 106, 107, 108, 108A, 109, 110, 110A, and 110B unless the employment agreement gives an extended meaning to the term.

Compare
  • 1991 No 22 s 31
Notes
  • Section 111: amended, on , by section 40 of the Protected Disclosures (Protection of Whistleblowers) Act 2022 (2022 No 20).
  • Section 111: amended, on , by section 259(1) of the Family Violence Act 2018 (2018 No 46).
  • Section 111: amended, on , by section 10(1) of the Domestic Violence—Victims' Protection Act 2018 (2018 No 21).
  • Section 111: amended, on , by section 10(2) of the Domestic Violence—Victims' Protection Act 2018 (2018 No 21).
  • Section 111: amended, on , by section 9 of the Employment Relations Amendment Act 2015 (2015 No 73).