Charitable trust to pay $15,000 for unjustifiably dismissing employee, ERA rules
Thursday, 23 June 2022
A religious charitable trust that uses football to go on missions has been ordered to pay a former employee $15,000 following an unfair dismissal.
The Employee Relations Authority ruled SoccerPlus was to pay the sum to former employee and volunteer Eric Seekie after it was found he was unjustifiably let go in January 2020 after an injury left him unable to work.
SoccerPlus was started by Kim Beale in 1998, and preaches religious messages through football missions.
Seekie, a UK national, had volunteered for SoccerPlus between 2014 and 2017, before he left for the UK because he was not making sufficient money.
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In 2018, Kim Beale, owner of SoccerPlus, asked Seekie to return to New Zealand and work as a full-time employee.
Seekie returned in June 2019, and it was agreed that Seekie would be paid for a minimum of 30 hours each week.
In September 2019 he injured himself and was unable to continue with that agreement. During that period, except for one week, Seekie was rostered on for 30-plus hours.
Seekie could not return to work because of his injury, and he went on ACC compensation.
“In January 2020 SoccerPlus terminated the employment agreement ostensibly on the grounds for redundancy,' authority member Geoff O’Sullivan noted.
“However, Mr Beale was candid and forthright in explaining what was happening. By this stage the relationship between the parties was breaking down with Mr Seekie threatening legal action.”
Although the ground for termination was redundancy, O’Sullivan found no process was followed, and it seemed SoccerPlus terminated the employment agreement out of a “sense of frustration”.
“It seems because SoccerPlus saw the relationship as having broken down irreparably, it moved to terminate the employment. Dismissal under these circumstances was unjustified.”
Seekie also wanted compensation for any lost wages and/or holiday pay for the period between 2014 and 2017, because he believed that at all material times he was an employee of SoccerPlus.
He claimed the absence of an employment agreement disadvantaged him, and that he was owed the sum of $58,905 unpaid wages together with unpaid holiday pay and unpaid sick leave.
O’Sullivan ruled Seekie was entitled to be paid for the 30 hours work he was guaranteed but not paid for, and holiday pay from June 1, 2019 until January 2020 – which came to $2310.
He was also entitled to $15,000 compensation for humiliation, loss of dignity and injury to feelings.