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Employment Relations Act 2000

Personal grievances, disputes, and enforcement - Recovery of wages

132: Failure to keep or produce records

You could also call this:

"What happens if your employer doesn't keep or show pay records"

If you are trying to get back wages you think you should have been paid, you can tell the Authority that your employer did not keep or produce a record of your wages and time as required by law. You can say this stopped you from making an accurate claim under section 131. If you can show this, the Authority may accept your claims about what you were paid and when you worked, unless your employer can prove these claims are wrong.

If you can show your employer did not keep the right records, the Authority may accept what you say about your wages and the hours you worked. Your employer has to prove that what you are saying is not correct. You are talking about the wages you actually got and the hours, days, and time you worked.

Your employer cannot use a wages and time record as evidence if it would not be allowed under section 232(3).

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View the original legislation for this page at https://legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1986/0120/latest/link.aspx?id=DLM60378.

Topics:
Work and jobs > Worker rightsRights and equality > Anti-discrimination
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Part 9Personal grievances, disputes, and enforcement
Recovery of wages

132Failure to keep or produce records

  1. Where any claim is brought before the Authority under section 131 to recover wages or other money payable to an employee, the employee may call evidence to show that—

  2. the defendant employer failed to keep or produce a wages and time record in respect of that employee as required by this Act; and
    1. that failure prejudiced the employee's ability to bring an accurate claim under section 131.

      1. Where evidence of the type referred to in subsection (1) is given, the Authority may, unless the defendant proves that those claims are incorrect, accept as proved all claims made by the employee in respect of—

      2. the wages actually paid to the employee:
        1. the hours, days, and time worked by the employee.

          1. A defendant may not use as evidence any wages and time record that would be inadmissible under section 232(3).

          Compare
          • 1991 No 22 s 50
          Notes
          • Section 132(2): replaced, on , by section 7(1) of the Fair Pay Agreements Act Repeal Act 2023 (2023 No 65).