Personal Grievances

NZPA reports that the CTU is claiming the almost doubling in personal grievances last year, is due to bad bosses.

CTU President Ross Wilson says “”You wouldn’t expect people to go to the ERA unless they felt they had a genuine grievance.” I disagree. Almost everyone involved in employment law knows that employees often file PGs, because the standard rule of thumb is one will pay out up to three months salary to settle it, rather than risk the Employment Court, which is perceived as being very hard on Employers for minor procedural flaws, plus possible undesirable publicity.

The CTU also thinks the amounts of damages awarded is far too low, and wants fines of over $100,000. Now sure Telecom can shrug those off, but the 250,000 small businesses in NZ could face closure with a couple of fines like that.

There are bad employers and I have personally supported many friends through justified personal grievances, but there are also many bad employees, and the near inability of a small business to get rid of incompetent employees without incurring huge costs is a major disincentive to taking on more staff.