Sacked couple awarded payout

A South Canterbury couple have been awarded more than $27,000 in compensation after they were found to have been unfairly dismissed by their former employer.

Amanda and Aaron McNoe were unjustifiably dismissed by O’Neill Earthworks in January 2015.

Employment Relations Authority (ERA) member Helen Doyle ordered the company to pay an overall sum of $27,344.24 after an authority investigation.

The decision, released on Tuesday, followed an investigation meeting on July 12.

Aaron McNoe had worked for Daniel O’Neill as an operations manager since December 2013, while Amanda McNoe had worked as an administration assistant for 13 weeks, a job which she resigned her previous employment for.

She had been supporting her four children and working from home, when her husband told her she no longer had a job as ‘‘Mr O’Neill had asked him to tell her’’ on January 13, Doyle said.

There was no written record of her employment, she did not have an employment agreement, and she said she was paid in cash, Doyle said.

She sought unpaid wages, holiday pay, three months loss of earnings and compensations for the loss of dignity and humiliation, which she was awarded.

After their employment was terminated, she advised the children ‘‘there would not be a holiday that year’’.

The day before, Aaron McNoe had been advised the company could not afford to employ O’Neill and himself, and he was encouraged to buy into the company. He met with O’Neill the next day who told him ‘‘he could not afford to employ Mrs McNoe so she would have to go’’, Doyle said.

Two days later, he was dismissed. He requested the reasons for both terminations in an email. O’Neill did not respond.

O’Neill did not attend the investigation meeting and no statements of evidence were received for either matter.

The Inland Revenue Department advised an application to put O’Neill Earthworks into liquidation was adjourned until August 1, 2016.