Veolia found to have unfairly dismissed expert Queenstown water engineer

The Employment Relations Authority has ruled that a former employee of Veolia in Queenstown was unfairly dismissed from his role as an expert water engineer.

Simon Trail brought the action to the Employment Relations Authority (ERA) after he felt he was being squeezed out of his Veolia role and replaced by another less experienced employee who he felt was not qualified to do his job.

He was dismissed by Veolia from his job in September 2023 after problems in working with his replacement.

The Queenstown ERA hearing in March was told that he was only one of two people in New Zealand who had his extremely high level of specialist water pipe technical knowledge.

Mr Trail has told Crux of other former Veolia colleagues that, like him, felt they were being pushed out of their jobs and replaced with less experienced people on much lower salaries. Many of those cases are currently going through ERA or mediation proceedings.