Idea Services is a charity providing care for some of our most vulnerable Kiwis with special needs. So why are they such frequent visitors to the courtroom – in legal cases involving their own staff? Steve Kilgallon reports.
Patrina Meredith was shocked when a workmate punched her in the head twice after a minor dispute. She was even more shaken when, after an investigation, her employer sacked both of them - so she took a complaint to the Employment Relations Authority (ERA).
With that decision, she joined a list of disgruntled former workers of disability services provider Idea Services to head to the authority.
An employment law database search turns up 41 cases involving Idea before the ERA since 2006, with about that many again in higher courts (usually the same cases being re-litigated).
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Idea – a company wholly owned by IHC which provides care workers for high-needs people - has been both a winner and, admittedly less frequently, a loser at the ERA. Noticeably, it’s vigorous in appealing cases it loses, and pursuing low-paid care workers for costs when it wins.
It seems unusual that a charity that provides care to some of society’s most vulnerable citizens is such an enthusiastic litigant. Idea sees it...
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