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Employment Relations Act 2000

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

128: Reimbursement

You could also call this:

“Money given back to workers who lost pay because of unfair treatment at work”

If you have a personal grievance at work and have lost pay because of it, there are rules about how much money you can get back. This applies when the Employment Relations Authority or the court decides that you have a personal grievance and that you’ve lost pay as a result.

When this happens, the Authority must order your employer to pay you back some of the money you’ve lost. They have to pay you either the amount you’ve lost or three months of your regular pay, whichever is less. The Authority must do this even if they give you other remedies as well.

However, the Authority can choose to order your employer to pay you more than this if they think it’s right. They can decide to give you a larger amount of money to make up for the pay you’ve lost because of the personal grievance.

Remember, these rules are part of the Employment Relations Act 2000, which is a law that helps protect your rights at work.

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View the original legislation for this page at https://legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1986/0120/latest/link.aspx?id=DLM60371.

Topics:
Work and jobs > Worker rights
Rights and equality > Anti-discrimination
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127: Authority may order interim reinstatement, or

“The people in charge can tell a boss to give a worker their job back for a little while until they figure out if the worker was treated unfairly.”

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

128Reimbursement

  1. This section applies where the Authority or the court determines, in respect of any employee,—

  2. that the employee has a personal grievance; and
    1. that the employee has lost remuneration as a result of the personal grievance.

      1. If this section applies then, subject to subsection (3) and section 124, the Authority must, whether or not it provides for any of the other remedies provided for in section 123, order the employer to pay to the employee the lesser of a sum equal to that lost remuneration or to 3 months' ordinary time remuneration.

      2. Despite subsection (2), the Authority may, in its discretion, order an employer to pay to an employee by way of compensation for remuneration lost by that employee as a result of the personal grievance, a sum greater than that to which an order under that subsection may relate.

      Compare
      • 1991 No 22 s 41(1), (2)