Three years of hell as sacked woman’s fightback torpedoed by vanishing official

Half a year after the hearing, with a ruling already months overdue, a bombshell dropped. Photo / Getty Images

Auckland flower trader Syd Hansen secured victory in June through the Employment Relations Authority — along with a $50,000 award for unjustified dismissal and damages, but a three-year delay caused by Covid and a judicial official abruptly vacating his role has left her with only regrets.

“While I feel vindicated in taking the action, the financial cost - and cost personally over the past three years - has been enormous. In hindsight I could not recommend the Employment Relations Authority [ERA] to anyone in my situation at all,” she said.

Hansen had run her own business before taking a $100,000-a-year job in mid-2019 with her suppliers, United Flower Growers (UFG). Economic pressures, largely caused by the Covid-19 pandemic causing trading to cease for a time, led to UFG making her redundant in June 2020.

At this time she filed an employment grievance arguing her dismissal was unjustified, but delays due to the ongoing Covid lockdowns meant more than two years passed before the case had a formal hearing over the course of three days in August last year.

“Throughout the three-day hearing [the ERA member] was incredibly professional and clear, he was very fair to both sides. Gave us both plenty of time to talk, and he questioned and drilled down into the detail of the case. You can only get that by listening to both sides,” she said.

But half a year after the hearing, with a ruling already months overdue, a bombshell dropped that the ERA member hearing their case had suddenly vacated his role.

The Herald reported on the disappearing ERA member in June. He cited trauma and grief as being behind his departure and apologised for the administrative chaos left in his wake.

“I sincerely regret the matters outstanding when my time at the authority ended. I was unable to complete those outstanding matters because I was unwell at the beginning of this year,” he said.

Syd Hansen won a dispute she took to the Employment Relations Authority but says the costs, delays and stress means she can't recommend the process to others.

Hansen was one of nearly 20 active cases suddenly left in the lurch, a sudden crisis atop long-standing criticism that delays to process ERA cases were depriving employers and employees of justice.

The Auckland District Law Society earlier this year said it had raised concerns over the matter of the disappearing ERA member with then-Minister Michael Wood.

“I want to reassure the Auckland District Law Society that following the completion of [the departed ERA member’s] term all cases have been reassigned and are following due process as per law. The 19 matters reassigned to other members are at various stages. Some require further evidence; others are awaiting determination,” a statement said.

Wood then said funding announced in the Budget would “continue to address service demand pressures and address wait times. This will see an almost doubling of funded members from 17 when we came into office, to the low 30s in the next year.”

But these future improvements were no solace for Hansen.

“No authority hearings are recorded at all and, as far as I understand it, the ERA member’s notes were undecipherable,” she said.

Hansen said she had borne the stress of cross-examination, along with incurring $30,000 in costs from the hearing, only to see the entire process written off.

The ERA is managing cases overseen by the missing member by allocating them to others, although decisions in each case need to be made on whether to hold rehearings or rely solely on written submissions.

“Who pays for another hearing? The cost could have been borne all by myself. It’s not only financially crippling, but the emotional toll you go through laying it all out,” Hansen said.

“I consider myself an incredibly strong person, I’ve never had an anxiety attack in my life, but in that hearing I had two.”

She said had the hearing been relied on by the ERA she would have been entitled to some recovery of costs incurred during it, but holding a rehearing would have set her back a further $30,000.

She was unable to take on more debt and says she felt she had no option but to agree to have the matter adjudicated solely on written submissions by replacement ERA member Geoff O’Sullivan.

In June - more than three years after first filing her complaint to the ERA - O’Sullivan ruled in Hansen’s favour, largely over information used by UFG to justify its decision-making not being made available to her.

Hansen was awarded $25,000 in lost wages and another $25,000 for humiliation, injury to feelings and loss of dignity suffered as a result of unjustified dismissal, but she feels short-changed.

Costs awarded by the ERA amounted to only $11,500: Far less than what the saga had cost, she said.

“My legal bill for this whole debacle is sitting at just under $130,000. It’s an absolutely abject failure of the ERA.

“My legal team had made it clear in the beginning that my legal costs may outweigh remedies awarded, but we never thought the remedies would be so little ... I could’ve murdered someone in this country and got Legal Aid, but there’s nothing for you even if you have a case the ERA decides has merit enough to hear.”

Matt Nippert is an Auckland-based investigations reporter covering white-collar and transnational crimes and the intersection of politics and business. He has won more than a dozen awards for his journalism - including twice being named Reporter of the Year - and joined the Herald in 2014 after having spent the decade prior reporting from business newspapers and national magazines.