Sisters fired from job unlikely to get awarded compo

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Two girls who were fired from their part-time jobs because their bosses claimed a lack of customers, received compensation when the company showed no evidence to support their assertion.

Sisters Shani and Danica Hayes will be paid $1500 in compensation as well as back pay, the Employment Relations Authority has ruled.

The girls began working for the food outlet Hungry Hound in Tapanui, Southland, after agreeing they would work between 14.5 and 18 hours a week.

Their grandmother Lois Hayes also worked for the company, owned by Diana and Brian Oliver, for about 30 hours per week.

The business did not attract as many customers as Mr and Mrs Oliver had envisaged they were soon looking for ways to reduce costs, the authority said in its recently released decision.

"That quickly led to a reduction in the hours offered to Shani and Danica."

Events came to a head on June 16, last year when Mr Oliver told Ms Hayes and Danica that the girls had been "put off" due to a lack of work. Danica left in tears and Ms Hayes told Mrs Oliver that due to the "strained conditions", she could not continue to work at the business, the authority said.

Mr Oliver told the authority he did not say the girls were no longer employed because there could be a prospect of work over the summer.

Mrs Oliver said she tried to explain the changes were being forced by the business situation, but Ms Hayes was not listening.

Authority member Michael Loftus said the girls were dismissed because the Hungry Hound asserted a lack of trade meant it was incapable of retaining them.

"Its problem is there was no evidence tendered in support of these assertions. No financial records - nothing."

Ms Hayes told the authority she was constructively dismissed because of Mr Oliver's inappropriate language and behaviour in the shop.

Mr Oliver did occasionally swear, but that was inevitably the result of equipment failure aimed at inanimate objects and not people, the company said.

"...there is no evidence that Brian's conduct was anything more than inconsiderate and definitely none that indicates it was repudiatory," Mr Loftus said.

However, he found the sisters were both unjustifiably dismissed.

He awarded both $1500 in compensation.

Shani received $910 in lost wages.

Danica received $2957 in lost wages because she was unable to find work after her dismissal.

But Mr Oliver told NZME. News Service it was unlikely the sisters would receive any payment because the company was winding up.

The outcome of the hearing came down whether the girls were working as casual or part-time employees and the authority decided they were part-time, he said.

Hungry Hound would not appeal the decision because it had stopped trading several months ago.

"The company's got no money anyway and it can't pay out anyway," Mr Oliver said.

Shani said neither she nor her sister held an animosity towards the Olivers.

"We just wanted to get what was fair in the situation and we understood the position they were in."

But she and her sister would "exhaust every means" to get the money owed to them, Shani said.