The employee was accused of stealing after helping to run the Saturday market stall for the Antonius European Bakery in Motueka.
The employee was accused of stealing after helping to run the Saturday market stall for the Antonius European Bakery in Motueka.
A bakery worker questioned over missing cash from a weekend market has been awarded more than $16,000 after being unjustifiably dismissed.
The young staff member was employed by AL Enterprises Limited, run by Anton and Larissa Balkhausen. She worked in their Antonius European Bakery in Motueka and at their Saturdaymarket stall.
The dispute began in April 2024 after she had been at the market stall, which she helped to run with another employee.
Part of her job involved taking the cash lockbox to and from the market.
She said she was then presented with handwritten calculations about missing money, was not given a copy of the figures and was not told she was under formal investigation.
AL provided a statement to the authority stating that there was upwards of $400 missing on multiple occasions.
“Therefore, I wanted to discuss whether she knew why the money was missing,” the owners said in the statement.
The employee denied taking any money and said she sometimes gave regular customers a $1 discount. She said there was another staff member present who also handled the cash.
AL did not provide any evidence to the authority to show whether it had questioned the other staff member.
The meeting ended tensely. Later that same day, the woman was called back for a second meeting.
She said Balkhausen was hostile and again locked the door behind her.
The employee said that, when she tried to offer a solution of installing cameras, Balkhausen became angry.
Employer AL Enterprises Ltd did not attend the Employment Relations Authority hearing.
“[She] says Ms Balkhausen seemed intent on simply getting her to admit to taking money and that, during this conversation, she said she would call the police,” authority member Antoinette Baker said in a recently released decision.
The employee said she tried to leave quickly, forgot the door was locked, and hit her lip, at which she said Balkhausen laughed.
The next day, the employee emailed Balkhausen to say she felt accused of theft and that her employment had effectively ended.
“You have called me in twice on Sunday (my day off) to accuse me of theft. I have never stolen from you,” she wrote.
“It would be counter-productive of me to steal from people who pay my wages. I’m now in a position where I have no job, no income, no way to pay my debts ... All over a false accusation of theft, which you never told me about until the weekend.”
Balkhausen responded the following morning: “I didn’t fire you. If you want to quit yourself, please work for two weeks.”
‘She was not wanted back’
The authority found the response, combined with the earlier meetings and subsequent requests for the bakery key to be returned, amounted to a dismissal.
“On its own, this would clearly communicate to an employee that they remained employed,” Baker said.
“However, the second sentence is abrupt after Ms Balkhausen had conducted a set of two rapidly successive informal and unrecorded meetings with a likely inference that she had concluded [the employee] was stealing from the business.
“The employer’s conduct reasonably left the employee to conclude she was not wanted back,” Baker wrote in her decision.
Baker said AL Enterprises failed to follow a fair process and did not provide the employee with any formal allegations or an opportunity to respond meaningfully.
“There was no fair process that could have allowed a substantive finding to support dismissal.”
She noted the employee had considered the Balkhausens “like family”, and the emotional impact of the dismissal was compounded by their personal connection.
The employee was forced to seek emergency financial support and was unemployed for six weeks before finding another job.
The authority awarded her $10,000 in compensation for humiliation and distress and $6150 in lost wages.
AL Enterprises did not participate in the investigation meeting and is now in the process of being removed from the Companies Register.
Shannon Pitman is a Whangārei-based reporter for Open Justice covering courts in the Te Tai Tokerau region. She is of Ngāpuhi/ Ngāti Pūkenga descent and has worked in digital media for the past five years. She joined NZME in 2023.
