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Employment Relations Act 2000

Personal grievances, disputes, and enforcement - Remedies in relation to personal grievances

125: Reinstatement to be primary remedy

You could also call this:

“If an employee was unfairly treated at work, the first choice is to try to get their job back if possible.”

If you’re an employee and you have a personal grievance against your employer, you can ask for different things to make it right. One of these things is getting your job back, which is called reinstatement.

If you ask for reinstatement as part of your personal grievance, and it’s found that you really did have a personal grievance, then this part of the law applies to you.

When this happens, the people deciding your case (like the Employment Relations Authority or a court) must try to give you your job back if it’s possible and makes sense. They should do this even if they’re also giving you other things to make up for what happened, like money.

The law says that giving you back your job should be the main thing they try to do, as long as it can work in practice and is fair to everyone involved.

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View the original legislation for this page at https://legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1986/0120/latest/link.aspx?id=DLM60368.

Topics:
Work and jobs > Worker rights
Rights and equality > Anti-discrimination
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“If you did something wrong at work, you might get less help fixing the problem.”

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126: Provisions applying if reinstatement ordered, or

“Rules about putting an employee back in their job right away if a court says they should be”

Part 9 Personal grievances, disputes, and enforcement
Remedies in relation to personal grievances

125Reinstatement to be primary remedy

  1. This section applies if—

  2. the remedies sought by, or on behalf of, an employee in respect of a personal grievance include reinstatement; and
    1. it is determined that the employee did have a personal grievance.

      1. If this section applies, the Authority or court must provide for reinstatement wherever practicable and reasonable, irrespective of whether it provides for any other remedy as specified in section 123.

      Notes
      • Section 125: replaced, on , by section 47 of the Employment Relations Amendment Act 2018 (2018 No 53).