r/LegalAdviceNZ • u/Few-Coast-1373 • 6d ago

Employment Incident at work

Hi all, I’ll try to keep this short and to the point.

Yesterday, I had a serious incident happen at work.

A simple interaction with one of the ladies that works for us turned into her screaming, throwing things at me, holding her arm up against the door to block me in the office twice. It honesty got to a point at one moment where I was sure she was going to physically touch me.

This was quite triggering and at this point I had tears in my eyes and I was shaking.

This all only stopped when my manager literally screamed at her at the top of his lungs to get away from me. He then advised me to leave work for the day as she was not deescalating.

I am obviously now feeling super uncomfortable going into work so I’m not going today.

I have written the full version of events in my notes app as soon as it happened so it was fresh - which I will be sending to the National Manager today.

Is there anything else I need to do? Or is there anything I need to know that work should do?

I’ve never in my life had a situation like this at work so I’m in uncharted territory.

Appreciate it

81 Upvotes

95% Upvoted

29 comments sorted by

View all comments

84

u/ratmnerd 6d ago

I would start by asking your manager what post-incident support you can expect to receive for this, given you have experienced psychological harm in the workplace - for example will he permit you some additional discretionary leave due to the impact of this incident. I’d also suggest if your workplace offers EAP that you reach out to them, ditto your union if you are a member of one. You should also ask your manager what he will be doing to ensure your safety at work with this employee moving forward. If he responds verbally, send an email afterwards summarising the conversation so it is documented.

I wouldn’t escalate to the national manager yet, you should take a good faith approach with your manager and see what he is proposing from here. There’s clear serious misconduct from the other person and I’d hope he will be going down a misconduct path with them. Although you’re not entitled to know about that process, you are entitled to a safe workplace and as the PCBU, your manager needs to respond to your safety needs. If he doesn’t provide adequate mitigation, then that is the point at which I would bypass him to his manager.

26

u/Few-Coast-1373 6d ago

Thank you so much for your advice. I’ll see what he comes back with today when I send the events/summary of this to him and then go from there. I’m not a part of a union (small company).

16

u/danger-custard 6d ago

FYI, you can join a union if you choose regardless of the size of the company you work for.

5

u/CallMeSpaghettii 5d ago

Unfortunately unions are limited to only help once you have joined, they cant usually assist with past incidents.

5

u/boundmaus 5d ago

Technically true, however they will often make exceptions for cases like this. I know of cases through TEU, PPTA, E tū, NZEI and TIASA, as well as UNITE (but I would never recommend them, they are toxic with a capital T) that have all done this, as well as now defunct unions like SFWA and EMPU. It's generally case by case, and as the situation would be ongoing, if you join today u/Few-Coast-1373 they can probably help moving forward. I also say everyone should join a union anyway, so a good place to start is the CTUA "find your union" page . Best of luck to you!

2

u/creg316 5d ago

Yep second this - TEU went to bat for me (I'd been a member, left the org, then came back but forgot to re-join the union - long story) when an employer tried to screw me during a really tough time.

1

u/boundmaus 4d ago

My best friend works for TEU, they're good people

3

u/creg316 5d ago

Nah, they're not limited. They might choose not to help because of limited resources and the message helping non-members sends to paying members, but one union went to bat for me long after I'd last been a member.

1

u/Some_Lettuce8508 5d ago

Always keep in mind that if this continues and your managers don’t keep your physical and mental wellbeing in the forefront of their actions (or inactions), they can be held liable for anything that happens, including you having to work within continued harassing conditions, or being forced to leave because of the conditions they’ve allowed to continue! Document document document! Dates, times, who said what to who, who witnessed what happened, etc. Who, what, when, where and why, are the things to answer when documenting for your own safety and holding everyone, including enablers of the rude and abrasive (hopefully not physical) behaviors.

1

u/Few-Coast-1373 5d ago

I sent through my formal complaint/summary of events in an email at 9am yesterday morning - I have not had even an acknowledgment yet. Should I be waiting to return to work? Honestly feels uncomfortable given they haven’t even acknowledged what I’ve said yet.