COVID-19 has placed unprecedented stress upon businesses and employers across New Zealand. While some are struggling to fill roles, others are discovering that they need to restructure to reduce costs, or operate more efficiently. Businesses are able to change their structuring as is commercially necessary. In doing so they need to ensure that their restructure …
After more than two years of Covid-19 lockdowns, alert level changes and the traffic light system, for many workplaces the mindset of 9-5 Monday to Friday at the workplace is shifting. Additionally, with borders re-opening and Kiwis heading off overseas, employers are having to work harder to retain and recruit skilled employees. The above has …
The Fair Pay Agreements Bill (Bill) was introduced to Parliament on 29 March 2022. The Bill proposes a statutory framework for collective bargaining for Fair Pay Agreements (FPA) that would provide for a mandatory, sector-wide collective bargaining regime. FPAs would also supplement collective bargaining between unions and employees, as well as bargaining for individual terms …
The recent Supreme Court decision in Tourism Holdings Ltd v A Labour Inspector of the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment [2021] NZSC 157 (“Tourism Holdings”) held that commissions can form part of an employee’s ordinary weekly pay for the purposes of calculating holiday pay if they are made substantively regularly and temporally regularly. Holidays …
Supreme Court decision on commission payments and holiday pay Read More »
In a recent decision, the Court of Appeal confirmed that payments under discretionary incentive bonus schemes do not fall within the definition of gross earnings under the Holidays Act 2003 (“the Act”). Holidays Act 2003 When calculating payment for holidays under the Act, employers must take into account “gross earnings” as defined in section 14(a) …
Holiday pay decision on discretionary incentive bonus schemes overturned Read More »
The Government has announced a significant expansion of the mandatory employee Covid-19 vaccination requirement, saying that vaccination is “critical to preventing the spread of COVID-19”. Based on the announcement, by the beginning of 2022, many health sector workers, and most early childhood, primary, and secondary education sector workers, will be required to have received two …
Vaccination mandate expanded to health and education sectors Read More »
An earlier version of this article was published on 23 August 2021. This revised version was published on 7 September 2021 to reflect the mandatory record keeping rules now being in force, and to include information published by the government after 23 August 2021. New Zealand is famous world wide for its Covid stopping Lockdowns. …
Gate Gourmet New Zealand Ltd v Sandhu [2020] NZEmpC 237 deals with employment rights and obligations arising during the COVID-19 lockdown. The key issue was whether an Employer was obligated to pay employees the minimum wage if they were not working due to partial business closure, but were “ready, willing and able” to do so. …
COVID-19 and minimum wage obligations – the latest from the Employment Court Read More »
On 11 May 2020, the New Zealand Government announced that the country would be moving to Alert Level 2 and on 14 May 2020, Finance Minister Grant Robertson announced additional funding of up to $3.2 billion for a targeted extension of the Wage Subsidy Scheme. Wage Subsidy extension The Wage Subsidy extension provides for a …
On 5 December 2018 the Employment Relations Act Amendment Bill was passed, bringing changes to employment law in New Zealand. While the majority of these changes will come into effect on 6 May 2019, some of the changes are already in force following the Bill being given Royal assent on 12 December 2018. The Domestic …
Employment Law Changes – What this means for 2019 Read More »
