South Waikato Farmer Ordered To Pay $30,000 For Employment Breaches

The Employment Relations Authority (ERA) has ordered a South Waikato farmer and his dairy farming business to pay penalties of $30,000 for breach of employment standards relating to four employees.

The order by ERA Member Shane Kinley, follows a Labour Inspectorate investigation in February 2022 at a farm owned by H&S Chisholm Farms Limited in the Putaruru area.

During the investigation, the Labour Inspector found 34 breaches of employment standards at the farm and the owner Hugh Chisholm was involved in committing the breaches.

As a result Mr Kinley ordered H & S Chisholm Farms Ltd to pay a penalty of $20,000 and Hugh Chisholm a penalty of $10,000.

Breaches found included:

• Minimum wages not paid.
• Holiday entitlements not provided.
• Failure to properly pay for work on public holidays.
• Failure to provide sick leave.
• Inadequate recordkeeping.
• Deductions from wages made without consent from employees.

Following an agreement between the Labour Inspectorate, H & S Chisholm Farms Ltd and Hugh Chisholm, arrears of $13,992 were paid to the four employees affected by the breaches.

In his ruling Mr Kinley said the Labour Inspector had submitted that the respondents “incomplete and inconsistent approach to record-keeping had undermined their ability to effectively enforce employment standards and placed employees at a disadvantage.

“While payments of arrears have now been made, this occurred sometime after the matter was lodged with the Authority, with the affected employees losing the use of the money at the time it was due to them.”

Labour Inspectorate Head Simon Humphries said while the farm and its owner had co-operated with the Labour Inspector and agreed to pay the arrears owed to the employees it was nonetheless unacceptable and disturbing that they had allowed the breaches to happen in the first place.

“Employers have an obligation to do right by their employees. Too often our Labour Inspectors find employers are cutting corners or simply ignoring their moral and legal obligations to treat their workers with respect and according to the law.

“The Labour Inspectorate will not hesitate to act against employers who do not abide by minimum employment standards. But we are always willing to help and educate employers who want to do the right thing but are uncertain about their employment relations responsibilities,” Mr Humphries said.

“This company provided milk to Fonterra. At that time, Fonterra did not have a social practice audit, but we understand that they have adopted Workplace 360 from 2024-2025. Cases like this show the need for these audit processes to be robust in terms of worker welfare. We hope to see fewer cases in the future as these audit processes evolve.”

• MBIE encourages anyone who thinks they or someone else has been treated unfairly in the workplace to contact our 0800 20 90 20 contact centre number where their concerns will be handled in a safe environment.

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