March 31, 2026 • 12 mins
This week on Ask the Expert, employment lawyer Gareth Abdinor reveals how workers can prepare for the ongoing fuel crisis - and whether working from home is the way forward.
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Speaker 1 (00:09):
You're listening to a podcast from News Talk zed B.
Follow this and our wide range of podcasts now on iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Time once again to have a chat with Gareth abden Or.
He is an employment, workplace and information expert, Director of
abden Or Employment Law. He's with us once a month
and he is back with us this afternoon. Get a
Gareth good a guys, how you doing very well? Nice
to have your back mate. So, just before we get
into our audience questions and phocals on one hundred and
(00:37):
eighty ten eighty at the moment, I imagine you're getting
quite a few questions regarding the fuel prices and can
I work from home? And what do I need to do?
What are you telling those people?
Speaker 3 (00:48):
That's a very good question. It's it's a tricky one, man.
It's it's almost like flashbacks to COVID, isn't it. Yeah.
I think the biggest question I'm or the question I'm
being asked most often, is what happens when my staff
(01:08):
get stuck overseas. And there's a lot of people out
there that just assume that if they get stuck overseas
that they can work off their laptop, and for some people,
that might be feasible, but for a lot of people,
that's not going to work. So I think that's something
that's on a lot of employers' minds.
Speaker 4 (01:32):
There'll be a lot of people that are trying to
work from home under the cover of this, looking to
gage a situations so they can return to their slack
ways working at home and their pjs.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
So find balance, isn't it for an employer? And I
imagine that's who's coming to you, Gareth to say, getting
all these requests from my employees and they don't really
need to work from home. So there must be Is
there legislation there that they can come back to or
rules to say, well, look, I know you want to
work from home, but we're not at that point now,
and you've just got to suck it up and come in.
Speaker 3 (02:01):
Yeah, for sure, there's some provisions that any worker can
request flexible work arrangements, which would include potentially working from home,
and an employer has to consider those requests, but then
it sets out certain factors that they can refuse the
(02:22):
request for. And you know, for a lot of businesses,
it doesn't make sense to people for people to work
from home. You know, it's it's great not having someone
looking over your shoulder, and you can work in your
pjs and and all of that sort of stuff, but
doesn't actually work for the business or the organization.
Speaker 4 (02:42):
As my boss when I was working in London on
July seventh, two thousand and five, during the terrorist attacks,
my boss from Birmingham said, when I rang up and
he said, get into work, you're coward.
Speaker 3 (02:56):
Sounds really sensitive.
Speaker 4 (02:58):
Good operator, good operator, but one of the tubes exploded.
Get in your coward.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
That's how you run a business.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
Right, And just before we.
Speaker 4 (03:05):
Got into other questions, what should you do if you
suspect your co worker as a KGB agent?
Speaker 3 (03:10):
Well, you know, I'm surprised. You guys were talking about
potent selling shoes, but no one mentioned l Bundy.
Speaker 5 (03:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
How can you talk about selling shoes and not talk
about L Bundy? Yeah, good point.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that is a shame.
Speaker 6 (03:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
Yeah, we'll do better.
Speaker 3 (03:24):
Gareth will do better.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
Right, he is standing by taking your calls. Oh, eight
hundred and eighty ten eighty and nineteen nine two is
the text, get a kim.
Speaker 6 (03:32):
Hi.
Speaker 7 (03:32):
He you doing very good.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
Gareth is standing by.
Speaker 7 (03:35):
Yeah, great, Hi, Gareth, I'm in the pro Yeah, I'm
in the process at the moment of being maybe made redundant.
Now in my contract, there's no notice period of how
much notice they have to give me. Yet if I leave,
I have to give four weeks notice. Would that be
the same for them for the redundancy.
Speaker 3 (03:57):
Yeah, Kim, it's pretty unusual for their only to be
a notice period for one of the parties to the agreement.
If there's no notice period specified, if you're made redundant,
then the law says that you need to be provided
reasonable notice. And I think you've got a really strong
(04:19):
argument that that would be the period that's put in
there for you if you resign. So that's where I'd
be starting, So it.
Speaker 7 (04:29):
Would be four weeks. Yeah, yeah, yeah, but.
Speaker 3 (04:33):
You can always ask for more and then they have
to justify it because they have to give you reasonable notice.
It does sound like the employment agreement is perhaps not
as good as it should be.
Speaker 7 (04:45):
Yeah, because I did approach it with him and they said, no,
that it wouldn't be four weeks. It would probably be
about two weeks. And they sort of said, oh, it's
something to do with government legislation or something.
Speaker 3 (04:58):
Yeah, sounds a bit fishy. I'd push back on that right.
Speaker 7 (05:02):
Okay, it's good to know.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
Good luck, Yeah, good luck. Thank you very much for
your phone call eighty ten eighty is that number to
call if you've got a question for Gareth? Now is
your opportunity some texts coming through on nine two ninet two.
Speaker 4 (05:15):
Gaday, guys, quick question. Am I considered a full time
employee if I am a contractor to a company but
in the contract I am not allowed to work for
any other company or any other work. Doesn't seem right,
but they say that's how they do business. Thanks for
your info.
Speaker 7 (05:29):
PS.
Speaker 4 (05:30):
Butter bullets are great skate shoes. Okay, so we'll go
with the first question.
Speaker 3 (05:36):
Comment on the skates shoe aspect of it. But no,
you're not a full time employee if you're a contractor.
If you're a contractor, you're a contractor. I guess the
real question is are you actually a contractor? Now there
is new legislation out which has a test that you
can look at, but this is it's a bit of
(05:58):
a vexed question and it's gone through the courts time
and time again. If you are prevented from working for
competitors and you can't do any other work, I think
you should be asking more questions because you might actually
be an employee. But it's not a straightforward one. The
(06:22):
real question is are you in business on your own account?
And if you're charging GST and claiming deductions and stuff
like that, and then you argue you're an employee, you
may actually need to pay some money back. So not
straightforward something that I would definitely be getting proper advice on.
Speaker 2 (06:42):
Yeah, very interesting. We're joined by Gareth Abdnor, an employment,
workplace and information expert and director of Abdenor Employment Law,
taking your questions and anything going on in your workplace.
Speaker 4 (06:53):
Eleanor Eleanor Abdnor.
Speaker 6 (06:55):
Hello, I'm calling on behalf of somebody else. Okay, this
person has finishty job with a company or NGO. They've
noticed that there's a discrepancy in their pay and they've
brought it up with their boss and said to their boss,
my holiday pay is not correct. The boss said, I'll
look into it. This was in December last year. Now
(07:19):
fast forward. He still hasn't head back from her, so
he went to an accountant. The accountant looked at the
numbers and said, yes, there's about two thousand dollars owing
to you. The accountant emailed the boss. The boss emailed
back and he said, no, it's incorrect. You need to
pay my client this much money. And it's been three
(07:39):
months now and he still hasn't been paid out.
Speaker 8 (07:41):
What is the next step.
Speaker 3 (07:45):
I suggest that your friend Lodge's acclaim with the Employment
Relations Authority for I'm paid wages. That tends to get
a response quite quickly from the other side. Sounds like
they've tried to do it the nice way and it
hasn't been a priority Lodge a claim. I think the
(08:08):
final fees about seventy two dollars, sounds like it's well
worth going to that expense to actually actually get a response.
Speaker 6 (08:19):
And what if there's been multiple other people experience us
as well, because it's not.
Speaker 3 (08:23):
Just your friend. Could potentially contact the Labor Inspectorate and
a labor inspector might get involved. If it's affecting more
than one person, it can be a bit difficult to
predict whether they are prepared to take it on or not,
but that's worth a try.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
Or the very best eleanor thank you very much for
giving us a call, Prisana, how are you?
Speaker 5 (08:50):
Oh hey good? Thank you hey? Like we are eied
of you employers and the hired a couple of employs
and one of the aid of the employees contract says
he should be given at least thirty hours a week.
(09:13):
And he has worked with he's with us like more
than one hundred weeks now almost like two years, and
some of the weeks he has worked less than thirty hours.
That's what we so recently when we looked into his profile.
So the immigration has also picked up on that. But
on an average he has worked thirty four or more
(09:35):
than thirty four hours per week was a two year speriod.
So are we actually in breach a contract?
Speaker 3 (09:43):
Yeah, it really depends on what exactly is in the contract.
If it sees an employee will be given at least
thirty hours a week and they haven't been given that,
then you might owe the money. But you have to
look at exactly what the clause sees. It may be
(10:04):
that an average is fine, but certainly not something that
I can comment on without actually seeing the documents. It
does sometimes happen that people take the approach that well,
it averages out and that's fear. But if that's not
what the contract is, well, then the employee might have
(10:26):
a claim to wages. I suggest that you carefully look
at the contract and then if necessary, get some advice.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
Or the very best persona. Thank you very much for
your question, Cindy. Gareth is standing by.
Speaker 6 (10:42):
Hello.
Speaker 8 (10:43):
I just wanted to know if I'm doing the right
thing at that end the day. So I normally have
two staff members that work on the Saturday. We were
going to close for the whole day on the Saturday
for ends that day. They also normally work on the Monday,
so they would just go to work and be paid
as normal on the Monday.
Speaker 3 (11:05):
Gosh, I'm not sure I follow there. If the Fanzact
day is a day that they normally work and you're closing,
well then you need to pay them. I don't know
about the Monday. What I always say to people with
public holidays is you really need to sit down and
plot it out. And the best place to lock is
(11:26):
the employment dot go o VT dot NZ website. That's
really useful because it actually sets out examples, and so
I suggest you have a look at that, and I'm
pretty sure that will have the answer for you.
Speaker 8 (11:41):
Very good.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
So he all the very best with that one. They're
stuck in a bit of a holiday. Pay one there
for you.
Speaker 6 (11:46):
Gareth.
Speaker 2 (11:49):
Time exactly. Hey, always fantastic to have you on. Thank
you very much again. Go well down then we'll catch
up in about a month's time.
Speaker 3 (11:57):
Thanks guys. Have a good Easter.
Speaker 2 (11:58):
Yeah you too. That is Gareth abdenor Employment work Place,
an information expert and director of Abdenor Employment Law. He
is brilliant. If you want to get a hold of him,
just go to his website or law dot z. And
I've got to read this out. The content of this
segment is general in nature and is not legal advice.
Any information discussed is not intended to be a substitute
for obtaining specific professional advice, and shouldn't be relied upon
(12:21):
as such.
Speaker 1 (12:23):
For more from NEWSTALKSB listen live on air or online
and keep our shows with you wherever you go with
our podcasts on iHeartRadio.
You're listening to a podcast from News Talk zed B.
Follow this and our wide range of podcasts now on iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Time once again to have a chat with Gareth abden Or.
He is an employment, workplace and information expert, Director of
abden Or Employment Law. He's with us once a month
and he is back with us this afternoon. Get a
Gareth good a guys, how you doing very well? Nice
to have your back mate. So, just before we get
into our audience questions and phocals on one hundred and
(00:37):
eighty ten eighty at the moment, I imagine you're getting
quite a few questions regarding the fuel prices and can
I work from home? And what do I need to do?
What are you telling those people?
Speaker 3 (00:48):
That's a very good question. It's it's a tricky one, man.
It's it's almost like flashbacks to COVID, isn't it. Yeah.
I think the biggest question I'm or the question I'm
being asked most often, is what happens when my staff
(01:08):
get stuck overseas. And there's a lot of people out
there that just assume that if they get stuck overseas
that they can work off their laptop, and for some people,
that might be feasible, but for a lot of people,
that's not going to work. So I think that's something
that's on a lot of employers' minds.
Speaker 4 (01:32):
There'll be a lot of people that are trying to
work from home under the cover of this, looking to
gage a situations so they can return to their slack
ways working at home and their pjs.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
So find balance, isn't it for an employer? And I
imagine that's who's coming to you, Gareth to say, getting
all these requests from my employees and they don't really
need to work from home. So there must be Is
there legislation there that they can come back to or
rules to say, well, look, I know you want to
work from home, but we're not at that point now,
and you've just got to suck it up and come in.
Speaker 3 (02:01):
Yeah, for sure, there's some provisions that any worker can
request flexible work arrangements, which would include potentially working from home,
and an employer has to consider those requests, but then
it sets out certain factors that they can refuse the
(02:22):
request for. And you know, for a lot of businesses,
it doesn't make sense to people for people to work
from home. You know, it's it's great not having someone
looking over your shoulder, and you can work in your
pjs and and all of that sort of stuff, but
doesn't actually work for the business or the organization.
Speaker 4 (02:42):
As my boss when I was working in London on
July seventh, two thousand and five, during the terrorist attacks,
my boss from Birmingham said, when I rang up and
he said, get into work, you're coward.
Speaker 3 (02:56):
Sounds really sensitive.
Speaker 4 (02:58):
Good operator, good operator, but one of the tubes exploded.
Get in your coward.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
That's how you run a business.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
Right, And just before we.
Speaker 4 (03:05):
Got into other questions, what should you do if you
suspect your co worker as a KGB agent?
Speaker 3 (03:10):
Well, you know, I'm surprised. You guys were talking about
potent selling shoes, but no one mentioned l Bundy.
Speaker 5 (03:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
How can you talk about selling shoes and not talk
about L Bundy? Yeah, good point.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that is a shame.
Speaker 6 (03:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
Yeah, we'll do better.
Speaker 3 (03:24):
Gareth will do better.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
Right, he is standing by taking your calls. Oh, eight
hundred and eighty ten eighty and nineteen nine two is
the text, get a kim.
Speaker 6 (03:32):
Hi.
Speaker 7 (03:32):
He you doing very good.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
Gareth is standing by.
Speaker 7 (03:35):
Yeah, great, Hi, Gareth, I'm in the pro Yeah, I'm
in the process at the moment of being maybe made redundant.
Now in my contract, there's no notice period of how
much notice they have to give me. Yet if I leave,
I have to give four weeks notice. Would that be
the same for them for the redundancy.
Speaker 3 (03:57):
Yeah, Kim, it's pretty unusual for their only to be
a notice period for one of the parties to the agreement.
If there's no notice period specified, if you're made redundant,
then the law says that you need to be provided
reasonable notice. And I think you've got a really strong
(04:19):
argument that that would be the period that's put in
there for you if you resign. So that's where I'd
be starting, So it.
Speaker 7 (04:29):
Would be four weeks. Yeah, yeah, yeah, but.
Speaker 3 (04:33):
You can always ask for more and then they have
to justify it because they have to give you reasonable notice.
It does sound like the employment agreement is perhaps not
as good as it should be.
Speaker 7 (04:45):
Yeah, because I did approach it with him and they said, no,
that it wouldn't be four weeks. It would probably be
about two weeks. And they sort of said, oh, it's
something to do with government legislation or something.
Speaker 3 (04:58):
Yeah, sounds a bit fishy. I'd push back on that right.
Speaker 7 (05:02):
Okay, it's good to know.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
Good luck, Yeah, good luck. Thank you very much for
your phone call eighty ten eighty is that number to
call if you've got a question for Gareth? Now is
your opportunity some texts coming through on nine two ninet two.
Speaker 4 (05:15):
Gaday, guys, quick question. Am I considered a full time
employee if I am a contractor to a company but
in the contract I am not allowed to work for
any other company or any other work. Doesn't seem right,
but they say that's how they do business. Thanks for
your info.
Speaker 7 (05:29):
PS.
Speaker 4 (05:30):
Butter bullets are great skate shoes. Okay, so we'll go
with the first question.
Speaker 3 (05:36):
Comment on the skates shoe aspect of it. But no,
you're not a full time employee if you're a contractor.
If you're a contractor, you're a contractor. I guess the
real question is are you actually a contractor? Now there
is new legislation out which has a test that you
can look at, but this is it's a bit of
(05:58):
a vexed question and it's gone through the courts time
and time again. If you are prevented from working for
competitors and you can't do any other work, I think
you should be asking more questions because you might actually
be an employee. But it's not a straightforward one. The
(06:22):
real question is are you in business on your own account?
And if you're charging GST and claiming deductions and stuff
like that, and then you argue you're an employee, you
may actually need to pay some money back. So not
straightforward something that I would definitely be getting proper advice on.
Speaker 2 (06:42):
Yeah, very interesting. We're joined by Gareth Abdnor, an employment,
workplace and information expert and director of Abdenor Employment Law,
taking your questions and anything going on in your workplace.
Speaker 4 (06:53):
Eleanor Eleanor Abdnor.
Speaker 6 (06:55):
Hello, I'm calling on behalf of somebody else. Okay, this
person has finishty job with a company or NGO. They've
noticed that there's a discrepancy in their pay and they've
brought it up with their boss and said to their boss,
my holiday pay is not correct. The boss said, I'll
look into it. This was in December last year. Now
(07:19):
fast forward. He still hasn't head back from her, so
he went to an accountant. The accountant looked at the
numbers and said, yes, there's about two thousand dollars owing
to you. The accountant emailed the boss. The boss emailed
back and he said, no, it's incorrect. You need to
pay my client this much money. And it's been three
(07:39):
months now and he still hasn't been paid out.
Speaker 8 (07:41):
What is the next step.
Speaker 3 (07:45):
I suggest that your friend Lodge's acclaim with the Employment
Relations Authority for I'm paid wages. That tends to get
a response quite quickly from the other side. Sounds like
they've tried to do it the nice way and it
hasn't been a priority Lodge a claim. I think the
(08:08):
final fees about seventy two dollars, sounds like it's well
worth going to that expense to actually actually get a response.
Speaker 6 (08:19):
And what if there's been multiple other people experience us
as well, because it's not.
Speaker 3 (08:23):
Just your friend. Could potentially contact the Labor Inspectorate and
a labor inspector might get involved. If it's affecting more
than one person, it can be a bit difficult to
predict whether they are prepared to take it on or not,
but that's worth a try.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
Or the very best eleanor thank you very much for
giving us a call, Prisana, how are you?
Speaker 5 (08:50):
Oh hey good? Thank you hey? Like we are eied
of you employers and the hired a couple of employs
and one of the aid of the employees contract says
he should be given at least thirty hours a week.
(09:13):
And he has worked with he's with us like more
than one hundred weeks now almost like two years, and
some of the weeks he has worked less than thirty hours.
That's what we so recently when we looked into his profile.
So the immigration has also picked up on that. But
on an average he has worked thirty four or more
(09:35):
than thirty four hours per week was a two year speriod.
So are we actually in breach a contract?
Speaker 3 (09:43):
Yeah, it really depends on what exactly is in the contract.
If it sees an employee will be given at least
thirty hours a week and they haven't been given that,
then you might owe the money. But you have to
look at exactly what the clause sees. It may be
(10:04):
that an average is fine, but certainly not something that
I can comment on without actually seeing the documents. It
does sometimes happen that people take the approach that well,
it averages out and that's fear. But if that's not
what the contract is, well, then the employee might have
(10:26):
a claim to wages. I suggest that you carefully look
at the contract and then if necessary, get some advice.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
Or the very best persona. Thank you very much for
your question, Cindy. Gareth is standing by.
Speaker 6 (10:42):
Hello.
Speaker 8 (10:43):
I just wanted to know if I'm doing the right
thing at that end the day. So I normally have
two staff members that work on the Saturday. We were
going to close for the whole day on the Saturday
for ends that day. They also normally work on the Monday,
so they would just go to work and be paid
as normal on the Monday.
Speaker 3 (11:05):
Gosh, I'm not sure I follow there. If the Fanzact
day is a day that they normally work and you're closing,
well then you need to pay them. I don't know
about the Monday. What I always say to people with
public holidays is you really need to sit down and
plot it out. And the best place to lock is
(11:26):
the employment dot go o VT dot NZ website. That's
really useful because it actually sets out examples, and so
I suggest you have a look at that, and I'm
pretty sure that will have the answer for you.
Speaker 8 (11:41):
Very good.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
So he all the very best with that one. They're
stuck in a bit of a holiday. Pay one there
for you.
Speaker 6 (11:46):
Gareth.
Speaker 2 (11:49):
Time exactly. Hey, always fantastic to have you on. Thank
you very much again. Go well down then we'll catch
up in about a month's time.
Speaker 3 (11:57):
Thanks guys. Have a good Easter.
Speaker 2 (11:58):
Yeah you too. That is Gareth abdenor Employment work Place,
an information expert and director of Abdenor Employment Law. He
is brilliant. If you want to get a hold of him,
just go to his website or law dot z. And
I've got to read this out. The content of this
segment is general in nature and is not legal advice.
Any information discussed is not intended to be a substitute
for obtaining specific professional advice, and shouldn't be relied upon
(12:21):
as such.
Speaker 1 (12:23):
For more from NEWSTALKSB listen live on air or online
and keep our shows with you wherever you go with
our podcasts on iHeartRadio.
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