Damar’s products include road paint and aerosols, but during Covid it also began producing sanitiser and surface disinfectants.
It shut down for several weeks during the Covid lockdown but reopened as an essential industry.
Collier, who had worked for Damar for more than 10 years and had been previously considered as having leadership potential, was deemed an essential worker.
In late 2021, after a risk assessment, 96 per cent of the company’s 130 workers supported a mandatory vaccination policy. Collier was one of six employees who did not.
Damar introduced its “no jab, no job” policy in December 2021.
“Mr Collier advised Damar he did not think that the risk assessment had given an accurate measurement of the potential for Covid to catch and spread in the workplace,” ERA member Alastair Dumbleton said.
“Mr Collier viewed the risk assessment as made against a worst-case scenario, which he thought was unlikely to occur. He considered the risk was relatively low.
“He said that existing health and safety protocols, social distancing, the ability to isolate affected staff and test them, masking and work bubbles, were adequate to minimise risk,” Dumbleton said.
He also believed getting vaccinated could harm his health and mandatory vaccination would unreasonably interfere with his right to choose to get vaccinated or not.
Despite these misgivings, Collier received his first vaccination after being given four weeks’ notice. He had a family to support and could not do without his job at Damar.
In January 2022, Collier was seen in a tea room sitting less than one metre away from a colleague and not wearing a mask, contravening written instructions.
The following day, he was seen sitting at a table on an outside grassed area with colleagues.
He was subsequently dismissed, with Damar saying he had committed serious misconduct by failing to adhere to a code of conduct.
The ERA found that Damar’s decision to implement a mandatory vaccination policy was to Collier’s disadvantage.
“The decision introduced into his employment an ultimatum that had not existed before – ‘no jab, no job’ - as it has been described,” Dumbleton said.
“This had not been a condition of employment previously and the introduction of it substantially weakened the employment relationship and threatened its continuation.”
Dumbleton said Damar’s conclusion that it had no option but to introduce mandatory vaccination was unsupportable. There clearly were options, including paid leave, but these were not considered sufficiently or at all.
The ERA also found that Damar had not justified Collier’s dismissal, because it had not taken all the actions that a “fair and reasonable” employer could have done and there were “defects” in the way it went about firing him.
“It was unfair for him while already under strain to have less than three hours to think about how he should present his position in responding to serious allegations at a disciplinary meeting. He did not receive a fair hearing in the rushed circumstances.”
The authority found he had been unjustifiably dismissed.
It awarded Collier $21,850 compensation, and $11,400 for lost wages, representing the eight weeks it took him to find a new job.
Ric Stevens spent many years working for the former New Zealand Press Association news agency, including as a political reporter at Parliament, before holding senior positions at various daily newspapers. He joined NZME’s Open Justice team in 2022 and is based in Hawke’s Bay.
