Holiday pay deducted after school pickups, Rotorua's Mid City Motors ordered to pay $8000 owed

Mid City Motors Rotorua. Photo / Stephen Parker

A Rotorua man whose holiday pay was slashed because he picked his daughter up from school once a week has been awarded $8000.

William McLanachan defended himself and won his employment dispute with Mid City Motors owner Graeme Shuter.

The Employment Relations Authority ruled McLanachan was not paid eight weeks' holiday pay last May when he resigned from his employer of 20 years.

Shuter was given three weeks to pay it.

McLanachan worked 8am to 5pm, Monday to Friday.

There was no recording of the hours actually worked.

McLanachan and Shuter agreed that occasional time off was taken without pay deductions, for example, if a staff member needed to visit someone.

No payslips, separate holiday and leave records or leave application forms were provided during McLanachan's employment.

Records from 2007 to 2014 showed McLanachan took an average of 70 per cent of his four-week annual holiday entitlement.

Mid City Motors Rotorua. Photo / Stephen Parker

Three to four years before resigning, McLanachan approached Shuter about having regular time off from 3pm to 5pm once a week to pick up his daughter after school, as his wife had an extra work commitment.

McLanachan said he asked Shuter whether he wanted him to make up the time by working through his lunch hour or to dock his wages.

He said Shuter said not to worry and to leave things as they were.

Shuter said McLanachan asked if he could take the pick-up time off 'in lieu' of holidays so his standard weekly pay was unaffected.

There was no recording of the arrangement, nor any holiday deductions for the pick-up afternoons.

McLanachan continued to be paid the same weekly amount.

The arrangement operated flexibly with McLanachan not taking the hours off if it was the school holidays, if his workmate was on leave or off work, or if they were busy.

An investigation meeting was held in Rotorua on February 14.

In authority member Nicola Craig's findings, she wrote, "it was apparent that limited paperwork regarding employment matters was held or retrievable".

Craig concluded: "I accept Mr McLanachan's evidence that if he had known, via seeing it in the wage book, that he was using up his annual holiday entitlement he would have made other arrangements."

She said it was impossible to establish McLanachan's exact annual leave entitlement because of the company's lack of records, but she concluded it was close to eight weeks when he left Mid City Motors.

McLanachan represented himself, so his legal costs could not be reimbursed, but McLanachan's $71.56 filing fee was covered on top of the $8000 payout.