The Letts Business Blog

Stage 1 - Are you still within time limits?

If you want to make a claim to the Employment Tribunal, you should bear in mind that there are time limitations.  As a a general rule, the cut off time will be three months (minus one day) from the date of your last day at work or date of dismissal.  So for example, if your last day at work was 17 April 2009, then the cut off date for you to submit an application to the Employment Tribunal was 16 July 2009.  If you are submitting your application form electronically then you will have until 12 midnight in which to submit your form, but not a minute more, so its best not to wait until its too late.

Unlike the UK system, New Zealand does not have an Employment Tribunal and Employment Appeals Tribunal.  Instead, in New Zealand they have what is called the ‘Employment Court of New Zealand’. 

What about costs?

In this recession hit economy, it may be free resources that you are searching for.  My favourite place to turn to for precedents in employment law is the Legal Action Group (‘LAG’). 

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Where does one go to find good fact sheets to give to Claimants? 

What is a Claimant?  A Claimant is usually the term given to an employee who wants to make a claim against their employer. 

Is there enough awareness amongst employers of their obligations under the law?  Too often employers, especially small ones are still unaware of their duties under employment law.  Even more ignorant, often, are the employees, who are also not aware of their rights.  This is usually found in the case of bullying and harassment, where employees were not aware of the grievance procedures that are available to them to seek assistance.

Is there a comprehensive website you can go to find out your employment rights? It was when I was volunteering myself in a community law centre, that I came across some excellent resources from the Central London Law Centre.  Since then, I have made sure I kept a note of the links to these publications.  I still find these to be helpful handouts, that provide clear explanations in easy to understand, plain English.