The Employment Relations Authority has directed the Lakes District Museum and a former employee to attend mediation regarding a dispute over long-service leave.
In its determination, dated June 20, the authority advised Bridget McDonald, the museum's former retail and administration manager, to contact the authority if the matter remained unresolved, for a further telephone conference to be held.
Ms McDonald had worked for the museum for 14 years, beginning in July 1997.
After restructuring and redundancies made at the Arrowtown-based museum last year, Ms McDonald contacted the authority, lodging a "statement of problem" because she did not believe the advice of redundancy was for genuine reasons "but an excuse to get rid of staff the director had a personal issue with".
In November, the museum lodged a statement of reply and said the parties had settled all issues arising from the applicant's employment by way of an agreement dated September 19, 2011.
The museum said Ms McDonald was therefore "estopped" as to her personal grievance.
Ms McDonald's last day at work in the museum was July 29, 2011, having been advised in a letter from the Lakes District Museum board chairman it had decided to exercise its option to pay her four weeks' wages in lieu of notice.
"There was some discussion about final pay," the determination said.
Ms McDonald had asked a question about long-service leave "and she understood from the response that she would hear back from the museum about that the following week".
She received a letter from museum director David Clarke on August 2, along with a cheque in relation to her final pay, holiday pay and redundancy pay.
Mr Clarke had advised in his letter no decision had been made regarding Ms McDonald's long-service pay and that would be discussed at the next board meeting, the determination said.
Ms McDonald left for an overseas trip on August 5 and returned on September 5.
The same day, she sent an email to Mr Clarke advising him she had not received her long-service leave pay.
Mr Clarke replied advising her email had been sent to the finance committee to discuss and it would make a decision by the end of that week.
Three days later, Mr Clarke sent another email advising he had been working on the issue and had received legal advice which indicated the museum was not obliged to pay her long-service leave, that advice had been sent to finance committee members and they would make "the call".
A letter dated September 12 was sent to Ms McDonald from board chairman John Wilson, stating that under the terms of her employment Ms McDonald was not entitled to long-service leave until she had completed 15 years' service.
"However, the board has determined that in light of your 14 years' valued service, the museum is prepared to pay you one lump sum payment (which equates to 14 years' service) in full and final settlement of all issues between the parties."
The payment equated to "14/15ths" of 20 working days' salary, the letter said.
If accepted, "payment will be made on the basis that the terms of settlement and, in particular, the fact of payment remain strictly confidential between parties", the letter said.
The authority said Ms McDonald signed the letter and dated it September 19, and in doing so "she agreed to the conditions in the letter".
The following day Mr Clarke emailed Ms McDonald and advised her long-service pay should go into her account that day.
Museum counsel Maurice Maxwell said that letter was evidence of a "global settlement". However, Ms McDonald said she did not consider by signing the letter she was resolving any potential grievance and if that was the case "it should have been stated in the correspondence from the museum".
The authority said it accepted the museum did consider Ms McDonald had issues with the restructuring and there was a potential for a personal grievance.
It also accepted the museum wanted payment in terms of the disputed long-service pay to be in full and final settlement of all matters.
"The issue for the authority, though, is whether there was a meeting of minds on that matter.
"In other words, did Ms McDonald understand from the letter that she was signing away her rights to take a personal grievance against the museum" or simply resolving an issue as to her long-service pay, it said.
The authority said between July 29 and September 19 the only reference to any dispute was in relation to long-service leave.
Mr Maxwell submitted it could not be "fair and right" for an employee to "threaten litigation in order to obtain a settlement and then opt out of it".
However, the authority was not satisfied there was a "meeting of the minds", or there was "accord and satisfaction reached that would prevent Ms McDonald from pursuing her personal grievance".
"She is not stopped from proceeding with her personal grievance."
