Gloriavale a ‘very sharp business model’ designed to exploit cheap labour, Court of Appeal told
The Gloriavale religious community is an industrial-scale “sweatshop”, designed to exploit the cheap labour and welfare payments of its members, the Court of Appeal has been told.
The court is hearing an appeal against a 2023 Employment Court ruling that six former Gloriavale members were employees, rather than volunteers whose work was an expression of religious commitment.
Barrister Brian Henry, appearing for the six women, said from an early age they worked long hours doing cooking, cleaning and laundry for the community without payment.
While the community of about 600 people lives in isolation on the South Island’s West Coast, Henry said members did receive welfare payments, which were put into consolidated funds controlled by the “shepherds” who lead Gloriavale.
He said Gloriavale’s overseers, in addition to benefitting from cheap labour, also carefully managed individuals’ incomes so they did not exceed the threshold for Working For Families benefit payments.
Henry said one of the women, Pearl Valour, had no idea she was receiving $1,200 a fortnight in benefits – which went into Gloriavale’s “common purse” – until questioned about her finances by a social worker during a hospital visit.
“The whole of Gloriavale is, we say, a very sharp business model designed to make the most of cheap labour… It’s a sweatshop, full stop. That’s the circumstances we come into when we start talking about the reason why they were quite properly found to be employees.”
He added: “This whole structure is devised very deliberately, with very expert lawyers, to ensure very cheap labour.”
Absolute authority
Henry rejected the suggestion they laboured voluntarily, saying there was a clear power imbalance between the women and the Gloriavale hierarchy.
“The starting point is that a volunteer must be of equal negotiating ability to the person they’re volunteering to help. If they’re under disparity, they can’t be volunteers,” he said.
Henry said the evidence showed everyone at Gloriavale was answerable to the Overseeing Shepherd.
“So, what we have set out in practice is an absolute authoritarian employer, who’s called the Overseeing Shepherd, and he is in a position where his word is law and everyone follows it,” he said.
Henry read testimony from two if the plaintiffs, Anna Courage and Rose Standtrue, detailing the impact that the lifestyle and demanding work schedule at Gloriavale had on their mental health.
Courage said she was exhausted and upset at the “horrible “way her work team leader treated the girls, leading her parents to suggest she leave the community and stay with relatives in Australia because she was so “desperately unhappy”.
“I was depressed, suicidally depressed. [My parents] were scared that I wouldn’t be around at all. I jumped off a bridge once into a river. I wasn’t actually wanting to commit suicide at that point. I just didn’t care if I died or not.”
No utopia
Courage said she struggled in the outside world.
“I was in a lot of shock, shock about basically everything. Every time I saw a blue dress that reminded me of the Gloriavale dresses, I’d have a panic attack.
“Handling money just blew me away. Talking to people was really hard. Even my grandparents, I didn’t know them. All my life, I’d been told they were worldly and that they hated Christ, and that’s why they left Gloriavale.”
Standtrue also contemplated suicide before leaving Gloriavale, saying she had lost contact with her siblings who were still in the community with her parents.
“Since leaving Gloriavale, I’ve had good and bad days. On good days, I feel confident, smart and beautiful, in charge of my life. Then on bad days, all I can think of is my family still in Gloriavale, that I left them, and I feel all of the shame that was put on me in there… It hurts even more that particularly my younger brothers and sisters, who won’t get to know me, they’ll forget me and I won’t get to know them.”
The appeal is examining two issues relating to whether the plaintiffs – all women who left the community between 2017 and 2021 – had an employment relationship with Gloriavale under s 6 of the Employment Relations Act.
The questions are (i) did they work for hire or rewards within the meaning of the Act? and (ii) if not, were they volunteers for the purposes of the Act?
Henry said the Act contained minimum standards that were intended to protect people such as the women he was representing, who had to work in return for the necessities of life, meaning they had an employment relationship with Gloriavale.
“This is not utopia. It’s not The Sound of Music and there’s no happy singing in the hills,” he said.
“Both those girls talk of being suicidal as a consequence of living inside Gloriavale. There’s two aspects – the employment aspect and there’s the general life aspect. We’re only concerned about the work aspect now.
The court has reserved its decision.