Occupation walkthrough, day 21

Stuff journalist George Block tours the occupation camp around Parliament, as the protest enters week three.

Susan Hornsby-Geluk is managing partner at employment law firm Dundas Street and a regular opinion contributor.

OPINION: There will no doubt be employers who have been keeping an eye on Stuff’s livestream of the Wellington protest to see if they can spot their employees. Other employers have been warning employees not to become involved in unlawful activities relating to the occupation.

This raises an important question as to what freedom employees have to do as they please in their own time, and at what point their actions tip over into becoming an employment issue.

Freedom to protest is a fundamental human right in New Zealand. It is protected by the Bill of Rights Act as part of the rights to freedom of thought, conscience and religion, freedom of expression, freedom of peaceful association, and freedom of peaceful assembly.

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Therefore, it would be unlikely in most cases that an employer could discipline or dismiss an employee for engaging in legitimate peaceful protest, regardless of how much the employer disagreed with the protesters’ views.

Even where the subject of the protest crosses over into an area of interest for...

Read Full Story: https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/opinion-analysis/300528205/can-you-be-fired-...