'The decision has significant and wide-ranging implications beyond just our community'
Six former members of the Gloriavale Christian Community have been declared employees by the Employment Court in a ruling that the religious community's leaders vowed to appeal.
The Gloriavale Christian Community is a small and isolated community on the West Coast of the South Island with a population of around 600 individuals from roughly 82 families.
The community, which is based strictly on the King James Version of the Bible, is described as a "patriarchal community with a strict hierarchy" and is led by a male Overseeing Shepherd as the principal leader.
Complaint about working conditions
The Employment Court case dealt with the case of six women who were born and raised in the community before they left between 2017 and 2021, and then made a complaint to the Labour Inspector about the working conditions there.
The Labour Inspector took two investigations in 2019 and between 2020 and 2021, where they reached the conclusion that people in Gloriavale were not employees.
This led the Labour Inspector to conclude that there was no jurisdiction to pursue a claim for minimum worker entitlements on behalf of the plaintiffs, or any others working in Gloriavale.
This conclusion prompted the six women to sue the Labour Inspectorate for "breach of statutory duty." They are also seeking the declaration of their employment status.
‘Physically, psychologically demanding’ work
As heard by the court, women in Gloriavale carried out work within the community around the age of six, with their work involvement growing as they get older.
Around 15 years of age, they would eventually progress to working full-time to so-called "Teams," which are tasked for cooking, cleaning, washing, and food preparation.
These teams produced more than 11,000 meals, with the female workforce in the laundry washing at least 17,000 items in a typical week in 2018.
"The evidence clearly established that the work required to produce these outcomes were unrelenting, grinding, hard, and physically, and psychologically demanding," the court said, citing evidence.
None of the women involved the case were given a choice about whether they want to work on the Teams, nor were they given a choice on which Team they worked on, the court also said, citing evidence.
"Broadly speaking, that decision had been assigned at birth, having been born female," the court said.
Employees or volunteers?
In the decision released last week, the Employment Court Chief Judge Christina Inglis declared that the six women who filed the case are employees.
"The plaintiffs were not volunteers when working on the Teams," Inglis said in her decision.
The Employment Act 2000 stipulates that some workers may be classified as volunteers if they fit certain criteria, such as not expecting or getting a reward for their work.
Inglis, citing evidence, said the women worked as employees because this is what they were told to do and what they had been trained to accept from birth. There were also "dire and well known" consequences of falling "out of unity" from the community for not doing what was expected of them.
"They expected to be rewarded for the work they undertook and they were rewarded for their work," Inglis said. "They are accordingly not excluded from the gateway to minimum entitlements and protections on this basis."
According to the Employment Court, the declaration does not resolve all issues between parties.
"Future judgments will focus on the issues of identifying the employer within Gloriavale's complex structure and whether the Labour Inspector has breached any statutory duty to the plaintiffs," the court said in a media release.
Gloriavale leaders to appeal decision
Meanwhile, the leaders of Gloriavale Christian Community said they plan to appeal the decision, which they slammed as "wrong."
"We believe the Employment Court decision is wrong and we intend to appeal.
“The decision has significant and wide-ranging implications beyond just our community. This includes how New Zealand faith-based communities, iwi and whanau choose to live and structure their household responsibilities," the leaders said in a statement to the New Zealand Herald.
