Gloriavale leader Howard Temple claims community members did not expect to be paid and were supported by the collective. Photo: Jean Edwards
Gloriavale members worked to support a communal ethos - eschewing personal possessions or gain, lawyers for the leader of the community have told the Court of Appeal in Wellington
Community leader Howard Temple is appealing an Employment Court decision which found workers at the commune were employees, rather than community volunteers, working in factories and on farms or Gloriavale's domestic teams.
Counsel for Temple, Philip Skelton KC, said the workers could not be considered employees because at no point did the leadership of the church or the workers "intend their agreements to be subject to adjudication by a court".
He said the community members did not expect to be paid and were supported by the collective.
But lawyers for former members of the community said treating the workers as unpaid volunteers was a deliberate system to keep labour costs low and ensure members could bring further funding to the commune via the Working for Families benefit scheme.
Brian Henry, a lawyer for the former members, described the commune's labour structure as "a sweat shop".
He said it was not uncommon for women in the community to work 12 hours a day, six days a week.
Henry said limiting members declared income enabled families in the commune to claim the Working for Families benefit which in turn was paid into community coffers.
"If the team's women are employees and they get the minimum basic wage - when you multiply out the minimum basic wage - it's more than $43,500 - which cancels out Working for Families.
"So their structure can't have the women being employees because - [if] they are paid minimum wage for the hours they work - no Working for Families. So this whole structure is devised very deliberately, with very expert lawyers, to ensure very cheap labour.
"It's a sweatshop, full stop," Henry said.
Members forsake personal property
Skelton said members would sign a commitment forsaking all personal property - although community members and young people did work before signing the document.
Skelton told the court people were not evicted from the commune if they did not sign and some people had spent decades in the community without signing the document.
He said it was never an intention among community members that their arrangements could constitute a contractual arrangement.
"The relationships were based on shared spiritual beliefs and understandings. It's fundamental to joining the church that you accept the 'everything in common' belief," Skelton said.
He said signing the commitment to the church - which included pledges to work for the communal interest - was a "unilateral vow to the Lord and to members of the community but was not intended to be enforceable by law".
Skelton said central to documents outlining the commune's ethos and way of life were statements eschewing recourse to the legal system in the event of disputes.
"No Christian should ever, at any time or for any reason, take another Christian to the law. It is better to suffer a wrong or be defrauded than to take a Christian brother to law before unbelievers," Skelton read from a document prepared by the community entitled 'What we believe'.
Work a part of a wider communal goal
Skelton said - as children were considered a gift from god - it was not uncommon for families in the community's family's to have approximately 10 children.
He said women in the community's tasks were typically in support of the community's internal functions - often working in commercial sized kitchens and laundry facilities - while men were able to engage with the "outside world" to bring income into the community.
Skelton said the belief structure outlined in the 'What we believe' document was consistent with what happened "on the ground" in the community.
"It's the responsibility of each man in the church to work hard to provide practical and material means for himself, his own family and every other person in the church. It's not the woman's place to be the bread winner - or income earner - they should give themselves to caring for people within the context of the Christian home and the close knit Christian community," Skelton read from the document.
He said earnings' from this work as well as benefits collected by the women under the Working For Families scheme would be paid into a central account for collective uses.
Skelton said following the Employment Court ruling in 2021 - that the workers were in an employment relationship - the group had abandoned communal meals and washing machines had been purchased as individual families took on responsibility for those duties.
Skelton cited a prior case relating to the Salvation Army where he said the parties intention to enter into a contractual relationship was a defining factor into the nature of the employee/employer relationship.
He said - in that instance - the real nature of the relationship was a cadetship when a person agreed to work or provide services as a part of training towards a goal.
The appeal is scheduled to run for two days.
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