A female bar employee who was sexually harassed by her manager has been awarded $26,000 by the New Zealand Employment Relations Authority (“ERA”). The employee claimed that she was forced to quit after being bullied and being subjected to "off colour comments" and crude jokes, which the bar’s management “laughed off.”  

After her complaints, the manager ceased his sexual harassment but changed the nature of his bullying.  As the New Zealand Herald reported, “he micro-managed her every task, made her a cleaner, and ‘badgered’ her by monitoring bar till transactions on his home computer.” 

The ERA’s member who heard the matter determined that the employee had been constructively discharged, and stated that "Employees should not be subjected to such behaviour and when they raise their concerns those should be acted upon."

As its web page states, "The Employment Relations Authority is an independent body set up under the Employment Relations Act 2000. Its role is to resolve employment relationship problems by looking into the facts and making a decision based on the merits of the case, not on technicalities."