Employer wants to cut my pay and claims poor performance after burning me out on multiple projects—need advice
I’m on a work visa (currently have 2 years left), working as a skilled labour-turned-supervisor/project manager for a small-to-medium construction company doing mostly residential projects. I've been here 3 years, got two wage rises along the way (not like market value for managing and supervising, $10 overall) as I took on more responsibilities, but things have taken a bad turn recently. How I got here: We started mainly doing residential jobs, but when we took on a couple of commercial projects, the company needed someone to handle the office side of things as well as site coordination. Because I could handle the admin, review drawings, sketch details, write emails, and run the boys, I stepped up. Over time, my role shifted from a standard carpenter to a site supervisor / managing multiple projects at the same time. The workload exploded. I was running office coordination, delivering materials, take care of tools and stuff, doing paper/drawing reviews, handling QS stuff like variations and claims, and trying to physically bounce between multiple active sites to keep an eye on the work. The problem starts when: No support & too much on my plate: As the jobs grew, I told management that I physically couldn't manage everything alone and that the team on site needed more labor support or a formal who I can rely on him for take care of labours part, I got nothing. Because of skill gaps with some of the crew on site, I was spending my time trying to fix mistakes and chase tails rather than actually managing and mistakes happens. I told them straight: this isn't management, it's babysitting. Recently, after warning them a couple times that we were stretched too thin, they called me into the office. What they did: Management sat me down and said they are "not happy with my performance" and are trying to decrease my wages. They are pinning all the project problems and issues on me, completely ignoring the fact that: They refused to hire adequate labor when I asked. They loaded multiple concurrent projects onto a single person without proper engineering or project management support. I've worked my absolute hardest for them for 3 years, but because I’m tied to a work visa, and the jobs is cooled down for now, I feel like they think I have nowhere else to go and are trying to scapegoat me for their understaffing and poor planning.
My questions for Reddit: - can an employer legally cut your pay in New Zealand just because they claim performance issues, or does that require a formal variation to your employment agreement/consultation process?
- since I'm planning to stay here, and also I know the only reference for me is the same company, and I don't want to make a bad influence in my record, so by your experiences on the market and working culture of NZ, what's the best action?
Any advice from people in the construction industry or employment law would be massively appreciated.