KEY POINTS:
I have just resigned from my job because my boss tried to convince me that my religious beliefs were wrong. My boss also tried to convert me to his religious beliefs. This action caused me a lot of grief and made me depressed. I tried to change the situation by keeping quiet when my boss talked to me about religion but it just got worse. I feel like I had no other choice but to resign. I now have no job and no income and feel humiliated about what happened to me at work. What can I do about this?
Based on what you have told me you do have two options:
1. Make a PG complaint.
2. Make an HR complaint.
From what you say your employer's actions may warrant a personal grievance based on constructive dismissal.
Employees who resign because they are pressured to do so by the employer are said to be constructively dismissed. A constructive dismissal occurs for one of three reasons, when:
1. An employer gives an employee a choice between resigning or being dismissed.
2. An employer has followed a course of conduct with the deliberate and dominant purpose of coercing an employee to resign.
3. A breach of duty by an employer leads an employee to resign.
In order to establish constructive dismissal, there needs to be a breach of an implied term in your employment agreement that an employer will not, without proper and reasonable cause, conduct itself in a manner that is calculated or likely to destroy or seriously damage the relationship of confidence and trust between employer and employee. Two questions have to be asked. These are:
1. Was the resignation caused by a breach of duty on the part of the employer?
2. Was the breach of duty by the employer sufficiently serious to make it reasonably foreseeable that there was a substantial risk of resignation?
The situation you faced at work made it difficult for you to continue work. If you raised this problem with your employer and he/she continued behaving the same way towards you this means that he/she deliberately acted in a way which destroyed the relationship of confidence and trust between you and the employer. Also if your employer had not taken adequate steps to change his/her behaviour towards you, this may also warrant a personal grievance claim based on constructive dismissal.
If you choose to raise a personal grievance based on constructive dismissal, you must notify your employer of this within 90 days from your resignation.
Raising a personal grievance based on constructive dismissal can be a hard case to make but if you can verify and support your allegations then it seems that your case may be a reasonable case due to the religious harassment which led to your resignation.
You may also want to give some thought to making a complaint under the Human Rights Act directly to the Human Rights Commission.
The commission will investigate the complaint and, if satisfied, prosecute the matter.
In considering whether you want to bring the personal grievance claim or a claim for discrimination under the Act, you should consider factors such as whether you would like a speedy resolution of this matter, your financial position and whether you would like to address the fundamental injustice within the organisation you worked for.
The process under the Act takes longer in comparison to the process for raising a personal grievance under the ERA. Both processes allow for settlement options.
At this stage, it is worth sending a formal grievance letter to your employer to preserve your position and meet the 90-day rule.
As stated, the facts you have provided are suggestive but not absolute. You will need to instruct an employment lawyer or talk to an investigating officer from the HRC to ascertain whether it is worth pursuing a claim.
From what you have said, it is worth asking the HRC to look into this matter.
