KEY POINTS:
An Auckland company must pay a former worker more than $30,000 for the way it mishandled his redundancy.
The Employment Relations Authority said Joseph Davison worked as an engineer, operating plastic processing machines at HP Packaging.
He started as an apprentice in 1987 and worked at the company for the next 19 years.
On November 16 2006 he was told the company was downsizing and his job could be gone.
He was given a week off work and told to "concentrate your efforts on considering alternatives to redundancy".
He asked for details of the redundancy package and a copy of his contract to be sent out but received nothing for six days.
The authority said Mr Davison was accompanied by his lawyer to his next meeting with operations manager David Ralph on November 29.
The lawyer suggested to Mr Ralph that the company should also put forward possible alternatives to redundancy.
The following morning Mr Davison was sent an email offering a shift technician position "at the current going rate" and told to attend a meeting that afternoon.
Having failed to check his email in time he was sent a second email from Mr Ralph the next morning claiming the company had "gone out of its way to allow you as much time as possible for consultation"' and set a new appointment for 3pm that day.
Again Mr Davison was not home to see the email until later that evening.
At their final meeting on December 1 Mr Davison was again offered the shift technician position with the rate disclosed as $26.60 an hour.
Four days later, before Mr Davison had given his response, a letter was written to him saying "It was obvious to us you did not want to accept our offer of the position".
He was told his old job was now gone and he was officially redundant.
The authority found HP Packaging had not offered proper consultation on the fate of Mr Davison's employment.
It said the company's claim that it had gone out of its way to grant Mr Davison time for consultation was inaccurate.
The authority accepted HP Packaging had genuine reasons for restructuring, but was unconvinced it justified Mr Davison's particular termination.
Mr Davison was awarded $22,129 in lost wages and a further $9,000 compensation for hurt and humiliation.
- NZPA
