The Employment Court has found the Labour Inspectorate misunderstood its legal powers and wrongly excluded children from investigations into working conditions at Gloriavale. The former members are now seeking $250,000 each in damages, while their lawyer is calling for a Royal Commission into the Government's handling of the community
eLocal Report: Based on reporting by Jean Edwards for RNZ HERE
Nine former members of the Gloriavale Christian community have won a significant Employment Court challenge over the way the Labour Inspectorate handled allegations of forced labour, child labour, excessive working hours, slavery and servitude.
Hosea Courage, Daniel Pilgrim, Levi Courage, Serenity Pilgrim, Anna Courage, Rose Standtrue, Crystal Loyal, Pearl Valor and Virginia Courage successfully sought judicial review of decisions made by the Labour Inspectorate following investigations in 2017 and 2021.
Chief Employment Court Judge Christina Inglis found the Inspectorate misunderstood its jurisdiction and made errors of law, including its decision to effectively remove children from the scope of its investigations.
"Very High Stakes"
The judgment describes the circumstances confronting government investigators in unusually strong terms.
Inglis said the case involved "very high stakes", given allegations concerning child and forced labour within a closed religious community.
The Labour Inspectorate knew children were working at Gloriavale and represented a particularly vulnerable group, yet they were effectively excluded from the investigation.
The court had previously ruled in separate landmark cases in 2022 and 2023 that the three men and six women were employees rather than volunteers.
That finding placed renewed scrutiny on earlier government investigations which had reached a very different conclusion.
The 2017 Investigation
Concerns about child labour, long working hours and health and safety practices at Gloriavale businesses were referred to the Labour Inspectorate by Charities Services in 2017.
The Inspectorate conducted what RNZ describes as a "desktop inquiry".
Its report acknowledged that if Gloriavale members were employees there would potentially be numerous serious breaches of employment law.
However, investigators concluded that the people working within Gloriavale were probably partners or volunteers rather than employees. On that basis, the Inspectorate decided it lacked jurisdiction to investigate further and closed the file.
The Employment Court has now found that approach was legally wrong.
Investigators "Put the Cart Before the Horse"
The court found labour inspectors incorrectly believed they first needed to establish that workers were employees before exercising their investigative powers.
In fact, those powers could be activated when an inspector had "reasonable cause to believe" an employment relationship existed.
Whether someone was legally an employee was ultimately a question for the Employment Relations Authority or Employment Court.
As Inglis observed, concluding there was no employment relationship before investigating whether one existed effectively put "the cart before the horse".
Children Excluded From Investigation
The treatment of children became one of the most serious issues identified by the court.
Following further media reports about working conditions, Labour Inspectorate and WorkSafe officials visited Gloriavale in September 2020.
Before another visit in February 2021, however, the Inspectorate decided to exclude children from its investigation.
Crown lawyers told the court that interviewing children would have required parental consent, could have been intimidating or confusing for them, and that resources were better directed toward adults.
The court rejected that reasoning.
Employment legislation defines an employee as a person of any age, and the Inspectorate had already been specifically alerted to allegations involving children.
Those allegations included claims that 14 and 15-year-olds were working in commercial dairies and butchering operations.
A Protective Approach Was Required
Inglis found the circumstances demanded greater intervention from the government agency responsible for enforcing employment law.
Allegations involving child labour had potentially profound consequences for those affected, and the vulnerability of children meant their circumstances could not simply be excluded without investigation.
The court also noted that children substantially outnumbered adults within Gloriavale, while the community operated numerous businesses using its own internal workforce.
Excluding children because of resource limitations or difficulties obtaining consent was found to be irrational.
"Loud Alarm Bells"
The judgment also examined how inspectors treated Gloriavale's internal structure and documentation.
The Inspectorate had accepted partnership agreements signed by members while failing to give sufficient weight to other documents, including Gloriavale's foundational document What We Believe.
According to the judgment, that document revealed important information about where power existed within the community, the leadership's approach to work and the controlled environment in which members lived.
Inglis said "loud alarm bells" should have been ringing from even a cursory reading of the document.
The court found that indicators of control and duress contained within the documentation should have been taken seriously by investigators.
Former Members Seek $250,000 Each
The former members are now seeking to have the 2017 and 2021 Labour Inspectorate reports quashed, alongside damages and declarations concerning slavery and servitude.
Their barrister, Brian Henry, told RNZ that each of the nine former members is seeking $250,000 in damages.
A further hearing on remedies has yet to be scheduled.
Henry described the failure to properly investigate children as an "abject total failure of government" and has called for a Royal Commission of Inquiry into the wider government response to Gloriavale.
He argues that an inquiry should examine government files and establish why agencies failed to intervene despite concerns being raised over many years.
Who Holds Government Agencies Accountable?
Gloriavale Leavers Support Trust manager Liz Gregory said the judgment validated concerns former members had raised for years.
The case also raises a wider issue extending beyond Gloriavale itself.
Government regulators are given considerable investigative and enforcement powers precisely because vulnerable individuals may be unable to protect themselves.
People living within highly controlled environments may have limited understanding of their legal rights, little ability to challenge authority and significant difficulty approaching outside agencies.
When government bodies receive credible allegations involving vulnerable people — particularly children — the effectiveness of those agencies becomes more than an administrative question.
It becomes a question of whether the protections Parliament has placed in law actually operate when they are needed.
The Employment Court has now determined that, in these investigations, significant legal errors were made.
The next question is one of accountability: how those failures occurred, whether opportunities to protect vulnerable workers were lost, and what will be done to ensure they are not repeated.
Independent reporting. Original context. Credited sources.