Founder's son fails to give evidence for Gloriavale in Employment Court
Wednesday, 2 March 2022
A senior Gloriavale leader will not be giving evidence to an Employment Court, despite filing a brief of evidence.
Gloriavale founder Hopeful Christian’s son Mark Christian was due to give evidence on Wednesday, but the defence did not call him without providing any explanation to the court.
The case before Chief Judge Christina Inglis is taking place this week, and will decide whether Gloriavale members are employees.
A group of three leavers lodged the case against the attorney-general on behalf of the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment’s Labour Inspectorate and the community’s senior leaders and three of its companies.
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Court counsel Robert Kirkness said Christian’s failure to give evidence to the court would cause serious issues and result in the court making “adverse inferences”. He said his brief was important to the case and provided extensive responses to the plaintiff’s claims.
The court previously heard former members say young workers were pressured to sign documents and lived a gruelling life of work with no choice, public humiliation, withholding food, and physical punishment.
The three plaintiffs Hosea Courage, Levi Courage and Daniel Pilgrim told the court about beginning work in the community’s commercial businesses at 6 years old. Several former members said they were in an employment relationship with the community, but several current members told the court they worked together as a big family.
John Helpful, 19, told the court he worked at the community’s commercial businesses for work experience during a transition year at 15 and since he left school at 16 he has worked raising calves and in the community’s honey and health supplement businesses.
“I was not forced or required to work anywhere I was not happy to do so,” he said.
He said as a child he performed chores like all boys in the community, but there was also fun activities to do as well.
From 6, he was put on a roster to work in the garden or on the farm and he did go to work with his father in the moss swamp, but it would be doing small jobs like holding a bag or picking blackberries while his father picked moss, he said.
He was never denied food if he did not work hard enough but did recall being punished once for running away from woodwork and made to sit on the stage during dinnertime, but he felt like it was something “done out of love”, his parents consented to it and he was able to eat afterwards.
“I am proud to be part of the caring sharing community where all my needs are taken care of and where our efforts are for the benefit and greater good of the community,” he said.
Charity Christian told the court she was responsible for spending money on things like clothes, shoes and food, household goods and bills. She said the money came from Working for Families into women's accounts and was then transferred into a sharing account. The figure from last year was $2.02m, she said.
She said sometimes there was a delay in providing necessities of life like dental care to members.
“That happened and I think that's normal…We're always tightening the belt,” she said.
Labour inspector Richard Lewis gave evidence about his two investigations which found the people in the community were not employees. He said primary reason for his findings was because the people in the community worked collectively to provide for everyone and maintain the community.
Former leaver Virginia Courage also gave evidence on Thursday for the plaintiff’s case.
Courage said people inside Gloriavale were told to be fearful of outsiders and coached about what to say.
“I can now talk about how I felt. I have the opportunity to now say I wasn’t happy, I wasn't OK… I had to say I was happy because if I disagreed with the leaders they controlled my salvation… that’s a powerful tool to hold over someone,” she said.