Fonterra manager gets $25k compo

Fonterra has been ordered to pay a former senior manager two months wages and $25,000 compensation for humiliation, loss of dignity and injury to feelings after he lost his job and wasn’t entitled to remuneration.

An Employment Relations Authority (ERA) ruling released on Friday said the New Zealand dairy cooperative failed to meet its obligations of good faith, which included being active and communicative, when working through a 2018 restructure with former employee Timothy Keir, whose role was being disestablished.

Keir started working for the dairy giant and its predecessors in 1999 as a graduate trainee. By 2013 he had worked his way up to general manager operations South Island for Fonterra’s New Zealand manufacturing (NZM) division.

Keir was responsible for a large operation from milk collection through to producing packed products. He oversaw nearly 2000 staff and his team was responsible for nearly 40 per cent of Fonterra’s milk supply.

While the restructure did not come as a surprise to Keir he said he was ‘‘gutted’’ about his role being disestablished, the ruling said.

Redeployment was discussed with a human resources manager, with Keir emphasising any new role needed to align with his current role and career aspirations, including the size, scale and diversity of responsibilities, as well as salary.

Keir was offered the position of general manager of lower central North Island but he declined that role and advised he would be pursuing opportunities outside of NZM. Over the next month up to six redeployment possibilities within Fonterra were highlighted by managers but Keir felt none were suitable.

He phoned Fonterra’s director of NZM Alan van der Nagel saying he would be taking up a job at competitor Tatua Co-operative Dairy Company. Keir emailed van der Nagel later that day to say he was accepting redundancy.

The following day van der Nagel emailed Keir expressing disappointment and that it was not a redundancy situation as he had made the decision to take on the role at Tatua, rather than be redeployed.

‘‘On this basis, you have resigned from your employment with Fonterra,’’ the email said.

Keir was described as accepting the Tatua role before he fully explored further opportunities within Fonterra and van der Nagel asserted that his redundancy clause was not triggered and thus there was no entitlement to redundancy compensation, the ruling said.