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Courier drivers may be able to negotiate for better pay and generally better working conditions following a ruling by the Employment Court today.
The court has found an Auckland driver was in fact an employee for the company he worked for - despite them arguing he was a contractor.
Mika Leota had taken legal action against Parcel Express after he worked 10-hour days and received less than the minimum wage.
Parcel Express had argued he was an independent contractor, and therefore his own boss.
Leota's lawyer, Garry Pollak said the Employment Court found Leota was clearly not running a business.
"He had little control or influence over what he earned and his employer, Parcel Express, controlled every aspect of his business."
Pollak said being an employee meant access to a huge range of benefits - including holiday and sick leave, redundancy, KiwiSaver or parental leave.
But he said courier companies preferred to use the independent contractor model to keep control of their profits.
"The courier companies do not want their staff to be unionised, they do not want to apply minimum standards of employment and they want to be able to control their businesses and benefits - and I daresay there's a perception of increased profits by this business model."
In today's ruling, Judge Christina Inglis noted English was Leota's second language and he did not have a grasp of the legal requirements around being an independent contractor versus employee.
Pollak said the vast majority of courier drivers were migrants to New Zealand, who signed up to independent contracting without realising the realities.
"Parcel Express appeared to make a habit of engaging vulnerable employees, who didn't have English as their first language and were migrants from the Pacific Islands or South Asia.
"The way that the couriers are exploited is by a business model that ensures that the courier drivers are not employees, because if they are employees then they have all the rights that employees normally have."
Unions have been keeping a close eye on the case - and First Union spokesman Jared Abbott said it had huge implications and he hoped it would bring dramatic change.
Abbott said Freightways, the largest courier firm in the country, also participated in the court case and argued that Parcel Express' systems and practices were consistent with theirs.
"I think that being the case that they argued, it would seem pretty clear that their so-called independent contractors are actually employees too."
Neither Parcel Express nor Freightways responded to Checkpoint's request for comment.