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Health and Safety at Work Act 2015

Worker engagement, participation, and representation - Prohibition of adverse, coercive, or misleading conduct

91: Prohibition on requesting, instructing, inducing, encouraging, authorising, or assisting adverse conduct

You could also call this:

“Don't encourage or help others to mistreat workers for health and safety actions”

You must not ask, tell, persuade, encourage, allow, or help someone else to do anything bad to a worker because of their health and safety actions. This includes things like firing them, changing their job in a bad way, or treating them unfairly.

If you do ask, tell, persuade, encourage, allow, or help someone to do these bad things, you are breaking the law. If you are found guilty of breaking this law, you can be punished. If you are a regular person, you might have to pay up to $100,000. If you are a company or organisation, you might have to pay up to $500,000.

This rule is connected to section 90, which talks more about what kinds of bad treatment are not allowed.

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View the original legislation for this page at https://legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1986/0120/latest/link.aspx?id=DLM5977029.

Topics:
Work and jobs > Worker rights
Work and jobs > Workplace safety
Crime and justice > Criminal law
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90: Prohibition on adverse conduct, or

“You can't treat people badly for health and safety reasons”

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92: Prohibition on coercion or inducement, or

“You can't force or pressure others about health and safety duties”

Part 3 Worker engagement, participation, and representation
Prohibition of adverse, coercive, or misleading conduct

91Prohibition on requesting, instructing, inducing, encouraging, authorising, or assisting adverse conduct

  1. A person must not request, instruct, induce, encourage, authorise, or assist another person to engage in adverse conduct in contravention of section 90.

  2. A person who contravenes subsection (1) commits an offence and is liable on conviction,—

  3. for an individual, to a fine not exceeding $100,000:
    1. for any other person, to a fine not exceeding $500,000.

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