‘Modern day slavery’: Gloriavale leavers file $40m lost wages and entitlements claim against Overseeing Shepherd
Sixty-one Gloriavale leavers have filed Employment Relations Authority claims against the Christian community’s Overseeing Shepherd for lost wages, entitlements, compensation and damages totalling almost $40 million for work they say amounted to modern-day slavery.
In applications lodged on Wednesday, the former Gloriavale members said the Overseeing Shepherd failed to provide them with minimum basic employment entitlements including wages, holiday pay, compulsory KiwiSaver contributions, parental leave and written individual employment agreements.
They want compensation for breach of the statutory duty of good faith and breach of contract and have sought leave to raise personal grievances out of time because of a lack of knowledge about their employment rights and the failure of the Labour Inspectorate.
“For applicants, work conditions amounted to modern-day slavery, including forced child labour, forced labour and servitude in breach of the Employment Relations Act and New Zealand’s international human rights treaty obligations,” the documents said.
“For most of their working life in Gloriavale the applicants were trapped.
“The applicants did not enjoy a good faith employment relationship but were in a sustained exploitative employment environment.”
The legal action followed two landmark Employment Court rulings in 2022 and 2023 that found three men and six women were Gloriavale employees, rather than volunteers, working in factories, on farms or on the community’s domestic teams.
The court found the women were required to work from a young age, work was effectively assigned from birth, and they had no real choice about working on the teams in Gloriavale’s commercial-sized kitchen and laundry.
They were required to obey male leaders in a patriarchal community with a strict hierarchy and worked “extremely hard” under “punishing conditions”, leaving “deep scars”, the court said.
In the men’s case, the court found they were employees from the age of 6 until they left Gloriavale; ready access to child labour was a significant factor in the success of the community’s business model, and none of them had a choice about if and where they worked.
They were subjected to rigorous, sometimes violent supervision in their work and were hit if they were not working hard or fast enough, with some children denied food and publicly shamed.
The nine former members previously lodged claims for lost wages and compensation totalling $5.2 million.
Documents filed with the authority on behalf of the other 61 leavers said they lived in the same controlled, authoritarian environment that did not permit dissenting voices and compelled obedience through fear, including the requirement to work from an early age.
As children, they were required to leave school to work and worked hard over excessively long hours without statutory rest and meal breaks, the applications said.
They worked in an environment that was dangerous for many, where serious accidents happened, were subjected to an emotional and psychological discipline regime and depended on the community for accommodation, food and other necessities of life.
The documents said the former members were taught from an early age that if they did not work, they did not eat, and disobedience could result in a feared Shepherds and Servants disciplinary meeting.
At the age of 16 they were required to join Gloriavale’s Christian Partners and were told where, when and for whom they would work.
“They received money into their bank account (which they had no control over) for labour services provided, from which it would immediately be taken out and put into the Gloriavale sharing account,” the documents said.
The applications said the former members were Gloriavale employees who worked under coercion, did not receive remuneration, annual leave entitlements, rest breaks, compulsory employer KiwiSaver contributions or an employment agreement and worked on public holidays.
They have asked the Employment Relations Authority to order payment for lost wages, with deductions for board and food, holiday pay, KiwiSaver contributions, compensation for failing to provide rest and meal breaks, parental leave, a written individual employment agreement, breach of the statutory duty of good faith, breach of contract and hurt and humiliation under personal grievance claims.
The leavers were also seeking exemplary damages because of the “flagrancy” of the conduct and interest on wage arrears.
Barrister Brian Henry said the leavers were Gloriavale employees and were entitled to wages.
“They were denied wages, denied holidays, worked horrific hours and this is the consequence of someone who creates a business model based on child labour. Eventually it catches up with them,” he said.
“There is millions and millions of dollars worth of free labour that this organisation has enjoyed, and that was illegal.”
‘Treated like a slave’
Leaver Ruby Trust said she was treated like a slave.
“They say we had a choice, but what choice do you get from being born in there with no knowledge of whether or no we were allowed to say yes? We were always taught from a young age that if we didn’t work, we would go to hell; we were sinning, we were going against God.
“It was drilled into us from a very young age. What other than slavery is that? They didn’t actually give us a choice.”
Barrister Stephen Patterson said he calculated that 41% of the men involved in the claims had debilitating, life-long injuries, including hands crushed in machines, amputated fingers and scalded arms and legs, while many women suffered back problems.
“That’s a ratio that should not be occurring in New Zealand in a workplace,” he said.
Gloriavale has been contacted for comment.
In May, the Employment Court ruled that the clock started ticking on the statutory six-year time limit for wage arrears claims when the nine men and women found to have been Gloriavale employees left the community and experienced the outside world and employment law norms.
While the former members were outside the 90-day timeframe for raising a personal grievance, Chief Judge Christina Inglis noted they were entitled to apply for leave to do so out of time, with their age and Gloriavale’s “uniquely prohibitive circumstances” of potential relevance.
In separate court proceedings, the nine leavers were also seeking damages and declarations of slavery and servitude following an August ruling that the Labour Inspectorate made legal errors in two employment investigations in 2017 and 2021.
Judge Inglis found the Labour Inspectorate misunderstood its jurisdiction and failed to consider children.
“The context of this case involves forced child labour, workplace abuse and servitude,” she said.
The inspectorate’s 2017 “desktop inquiry” noted that if Gloriavale members were considered employees “there would inevitably be many serious breaches of employment law”.
In 2023, Gloriavale members told the Employment Court the community could not afford to pay everyone wages and employment relationships would destroy their Christian way of life.
In her ruling, Judge Inglis noted the court was not concerned with the merits of Gloriavale’s way of life or religious underpinnings and the community’s financial situation, including its extensive acquisition of additional property, did not sit well with a claimed lack of capacity to pay for women’s work.