Gloriavale "Servitude" Case Re-Starts in Employment Court On Monday "We're here to finish a job."

“We’re here to finish a job.”

That from Barrister Brian Henry who is leading the legal team in the case against Gloriavale, representing six former residents of the West Coast community (the Plaintiff’s).

The case began at the end of August last year, adjourning at the end of September.

A court ruling in May 2022 found that several of the Christian community’s businesses used child labour and treated workers as volunteers meaning they should have been paid and covered by employment law.

The Plaintiff’s legal team has been working without pay on the case for more than three years; some members of the team have been involved for longer than that. Mr Henry says when the team was approached about the case, they “couldn’t just walk away”.

“It’s unbelievable that this kind of abuse can be allowed to happen in New Zealand, indeed anywhere. Not only are we doing this for the young women who have been taken advantage of but remember there are just under 400 children in Gloriavale who cannot go through this too,” he says.

A “Give a Little” page has been set up to raise money to support the plaintiffs to help fund expenses associated with the legal action which has already cost six figures.

https://givealittle.co.nz/cause/help-support-ex-gloriavale-women-seek-justice

How did we get here? Background to Employment Court hearings

• Gloriavale is involved in three documentaries (funded by NZ on Air). A World Apart 2014, Life and Death 2015, A Woman’s Place 2016.
• During these years people started leaving Gloriavale in numbers not seen before. Some were concerned by what they saw as an unbalanced view of Gloriavale depicted in these documentaries and a few leavers were interviewed for Sunday, Campbell Live and other media during April 2015.
• The Police asked the Charities Services to investigate Gloriavale around allegations of financial irregularity, enforced marriage, physical and sexual abuse, forced separation of families and a controlling environment.
• After interviewing more than 18 former members, the issues widened to include financial practices relating to members’ wages, allegations that financial practices had been set up to facilitate theft/fraud, allegations that funds were being used for non-charitable purposes. Other allegations related to mismanagement in the form of conflicts of interest in management, coercion to hand over assets to the Trust, those that leave the community do so with no assets, members being forced to sign contracts with no informed consent, marriages taking place without consent of both parties, abandonment of members that poses a risk to their well-being, manipulation of members through their belief system, separating family members as a form of punishment, and unsafe health and labour practices.
• Charities Services suggested a Joint Agency was required and organisation including the Police, MSD, and Oranga Tamariki were involved to look at the ongoing care and welfare of the residents, especially the children. Charities Services passed some information to the Police.
• Charities Services also requested MBIE (Labour Inspectorate) to look at the issues regarding workplace health and safety, and long working hours.
• A Charities Services Investigation report was completed in 2016. It acknowledged the Trust had engaged in patterns of activity that were mentioned in the Act’s definition of serious wrong-doing.
• Charities Services did not give a formal warning to Gloriavale, choosing instead to work with the Trust to help them become compliant. Under pressure Gloriavale promised to make changes and to Charities Services, seemed to provide a “high level of cooperation”. Gloriavale added three external trustees onto their board. They selected a lawyer, who was known to work for them, a man who owned Mitre Ten and another local businessman.
• Gloriavale wrote new policies, which leavers followed closely, believing that Gloriavale had no intention of implanting the changes. Over the next few years, leavers say things worsened at Gloriavale, for example more controls were implemented. The group that became the Gloriavale Leavers’ Support Trust recorded the complaints and sent them to Police and Charities Services over a period of 2-3 years.
• The Gloriavale Leavers’ Support Trust called for a new Charities Investigation in December 2019 and their request was declined.
• The labour issue progressed after Charites Services requested the Labour Inspectorate to look into the allegations of long working hours and health and safety issues.
• In 2017 MBIE (Stu Lumsden) completed a desktop review of the Charities Services interview notes, and did not interview any ex-members. In his report he commented, “My conclusion, on balance, is that members of the Gloriavale community are not employees. Therefore, whilst some general concerns remain evident, it is recommended that the Labour Inspectorate does not proceed to a full investigation, and that no further action should be taken at this point.”
• The 2017 MBIE report wasn't released publicly and no one who left Gloriavale knew of the report.
• In August 2020, leavers signed a letter calling for another investigation but the
• Charities Services refuses to do so.
• In September 2020, lawyers working for the leavers filed a civil action against Gloriavale, seeking to remove the Trustees.
• That same week in September, two men who were current residents of Gloriavale came out of the bush on the condition of anonymity and spoke to NewsHub about their working conditions and life inside Gloriavale. The reporter, Michael Morrah, then followed up and uncovered the 2017 MBIE report. The then Minister of Workplace Relations, Andrew Little, ordered a review and inspectors went into Gloriavale.
• People in Gloriavale told outsiders that they were warned about the upcoming visit and the Leavers’ Trust was told residents made attempts to tidy up their practices and ensure everything looked acceptable for the inspectors.
• The Gloriavale Leavers’ Support Trust, along with ex-members and the media, called for a full investigation into Gloriavale’s workplace practices and allegations of exploitation.
• MBIE opened a “Pre-investigation” towards the end of 2020. This involved interviews with around thirteen leavers. They also interviewed people inside Gloriavale, who were told by leadership to tell the inspectors that they were volunteers and not employees. The issue sat with Crown Law for many months.
• After 9 months, on 23  July 2021, MBIE released a decision. They determined that on the balance of probabilities if they were to take Gloriavale to court over this issue, they would not have a 100% chance of winning, and so they declined to proceed to a full investigation. MBIE remained convinced that the people at Gloriavale were not employees. Because of this they had no jurisdiction. https://www.employment.govt.nz/about/news-and-updates/labour-inspectorate-concludes-inquiry-gloriavale/
• The Gloriavale Leavers’ Support Trust advocated for the leavers and insisted MBIE was wrong in its analysis and residents were in fact exploited employees.
• By early August the leavers legal team, Brian Henry, Dennis Gates and Stephen Patterson had requested the case be passed to them.
• By Sept 2020 they had filed in the Employment Court for an urgent hearing, which was granted to them. They requested the court find three young men as employees and not volunteers. The legal team decided to bring the Attorney General into the case as Defendant #1 because they failed to protect the interests of the alleged exploited workers, and Gloriavale entities and leadership team were Defendants #2.
• The hearing ran for two weeks over video link (due to Covid) starting 21 Feb 2022 – 4 March 2022.
• Gloriavale Leavers’ Support Trust calls for a reinvestigation by the Charities Services on the basis of evidence given in the court. This is declined. They say they will wait for the judgement. 
• The Judge ruled on 10 May 2022 that the three plaintiffs were employees from the age of six years old. They are entitled to compensation. There are two more stages of the case yet to be determined. Stage Two: The judge needs to state who the employers were. Stage Two:  The Govt will be in the stand answering why they failed to recognise the employment status of the plaintiffs.
• MBIE recognises that the court ruling applies not just to the three plaintiffs, but to any other young men in s similar situation, either those who have left Gloriavale, or those who still remain.
• Charities Services finally announces an investigation into Gloriavale after the ruling of Chief Judge Inglis in the Courage v Attorney General Employment Court case in May 2022.
• Gloriavale chooses not to appeal the Employment Court ruling.
• Before the boys’ hearing was completed, the leavers’ legal team filed a new set of proceedings against the Attorney General and Gloriavale, stating the young ladies who worked at Gloriavale were employees and not volunteers. This case is called Pilgrim v Attorney General. There are six plaintiffs in this case.
• Gloriavale requests the judge recuse herself from the proceedings. She says Gloriavale has stated that, “a fair-minded lay observer may reasonably apprehend that I might be biased in the second case, having been involved in the first.”.
• The judge refuses to stand down from the case.  
• The young womens’ case starts on 29 Aug 2022 in the Christchurch employment court.
• The case is adjourned at the end of September to be heard again in early 2023.
• Gloriavale says it has no money to pay for lawyers and will be running its own defence. This is despite being “down to their last $45 million in assets including $7 million in cash”, says Plaintiff’s lead counsel, Brian Henry.
• The Plaintiffs legal team reassembles on February 9th 2023 for the case to recommence on Monday 13th February in Christchurch at 930am and will continue until (and inclusive of) Wednesday 1 March (excluding weekends). The schedule is subject to change. Note: The court will be sitting in Greymouth during the week of 20–24 February 2023. The hearing will then resume at 9:30am on Monday 20 March 2023 and continue until and inclusive of Friday 31 March.

-ENDS-