Employer allows evidence to be destroyed...

The Employment Relations Authority has upheld a personal grievance claim for hurt and humiliation for the way an employer treated the employee at work.  This involved the employer abusing and demeaning the employee on each of his first three shifts.

The ERA awarded $2,000 compensation as well as $370 in unpaid wages.  The employer denied that the employee had worked for him other than a two-hour trial and claimed that the employee harassed another employee on his first day. However, the employer allowed the CCTV footage of the shifts to be overwritten rather than saving the evidence. The ERA found this to not be a credible action a reasonable employer could take if the footage actually supported the employer’s position.

If you have evidence of any work incidents, it pays to preserve that evidence so that it can be used to prove what happened.  If the employer had kept the CCTV footage, it may have enabled the ERA to come to a different outcome.  Instead, the employer was unable to provide any evidence to support their allegations of poor behaviour towards another staff member.  Even having allowed the CCTV footage to be destroyed they failed to present any other evidence e.g. from the employee who was allegedly harassed.

The lack of evidence from the employer meant that the ERA found in favour of the employee and that they had been abused and demeaned. As they had only worked for 3 shifts the hurt and humiliation was at the low end and only $2,000 was awarded.

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