Gloriavale ‘can’t afford’ to lose Employment Court battle, member says

By Jean Edwards | RNZ |

A Gloriavale mother-of-eight has told a court the Christian community cannot afford to pay everyone wages and employment relationships would destroy their way of life.

Temperance Hopeful, who is married to Shepherd Noah Hopeful, told the Employment Court hearing in Greymouth that Gloriavale members had a right to live according to their faith and their hard work was not slave labour, but a labour of love.

Six former Gloriavale women claim they lived in servitude at the West Coast commune and are seeking a ruling they were employees, not volunteers.

Hopeful told the court the leavers had painted an unfair and unbalanced picture of Gloriavale, where members wanted to lead a Christian life.

“To us, living in a sharing community has proven to be the most practical way of doing it. For this, we are being unjustly attacked from without to destroy our way of life, which is according to our religious beliefs,” she said.

Further reading: https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/484546/gloriavale-can-t-afford-to-lose-employment-court-battle-member-says