A man whose job was readvertised just weeks after he was made redundant has been awarded $10,000 compensation from his former employer.
The Employment Relations Authority this week ordered Kitchen House Ltd to pay Paul Cochrane $10,000 because of the hurt and humiliation he suffered.
Mr Cochrane began
working for the company as an operations manager in November 2006.
A year later the company told the employees sales were not as high as it had anticipated and there would be redundancies.
Mr Cochrane and 19 co-workers were ultimately made redundant.
Three weeks later, Mr Cochrane saw two advertisements for the same position in the company's North Shore office, but was told by the company those ads were mistakes.
In January 2007, he saw a further advertisement for the position but the recruitment agent, Patrick Petelo, said he was not appropriate for the role because of a lack of sales experience.
During ERA investigations, Kitchen House director Dean Phillips said Mr Cochrane lived too far away from the North Shore to be considered for the vacancy.
Authority member Leon Robinson said Mr Cochrane was entitled to have information about the vacancy as an alternative to redundancy.
"Mr Cochrane is understandably suspicious as to why neither of the recruitment agents invited him to apply for the advertised vacancy - a position he had only recently been made redundant from."
Mr Robinson said he had no doubt it must have been distressing for Mr Cochrane to see what he believed was his position being advertised a number of times.
"I accept Mr Cochrane has suffered hurt and humiliation, loss of dignity and injury to his feelings," he said.
- NZPA
