Insights & Articles

Issues on the “Zero Hour Contracts” for employees have been topical in the lead up to the Employment Standards Legislation Bill (“the Bill”), which is due to be passed on 1 April 2016.

On 27 June 2020 the Employment Relations (Triangular Employment) Amendment Act 2019 ("the Act") came into force. The Act aims to provide protection to those in triangular employment relationships. Typically, a triangular relationship exists where a person is employed by a labour hire company/recruitment agency, and works under the control and direction of another entity (a controlling third party).

Last week the New Zealand Government, supported by Business New Zealand and the Council of Trade Unions ("NZCTU"), released a proposal on an income insurance scheme ("the scheme") – one of its biggest reforms since the introduction of ACC in the 1970s. McVeagh Fleming's employment team have summarised the 'need to know' information.

Commenced on 4 April 2016, the new Health and Safety at Work Act ("the Act") replaced the Health and Safety in Employment Act 1992 which overhauled the way businesses and organisations must implement their health and safety policies. The HSWA also put in place a new statutory regime to enforce compliance obligations.

The enactment of the Health and Safety Reform Bill is expected to occur in April 2015. Significant changes to the workplace health and safety framework will require preparation now to ensure compliance.

On 29 March 2022, Parliament introduced the Fair Pay Agreement Bill ("the Bill") coined to the "biggest shakeup to workplaces in generation coming from government". The Bill has recently passed its first reading. Despite this, a number of people have expressed their reservations with the newly proposed system such as National Party's Paul Goldsmith stating that the Bill may make New Zealand less internationally competitive and add pressure to already stressed businesses.

It is a fairly familiar situation: an employee sustains an illness, or suffers an injury – probably due to no fault of their own or their employer - and is unable to work for a long period of time. Uncertainty may arise about when he or she can return to work, if ever. Repeated visits to a doctor or specialist, frustratingly for both the employee and the employer, fail to provide a definite prognosis about when the employee will be fit to return to work or, indeed, whether they will ever be able to do so. Meanwhile the employee may be receiving no income, or less than their full former salary or wage while receiving an ACC benefit. The employer is also left in the difficult and uncertain position of not being able to hire a permanent replacement employee but needing to reassign the absent employee's tasks to others, or make do with a potentially more expensive temporary employee.

In the current Covid-19 environment we are seeing a significant increase in the number of redundancies. We have set out briefly below a few points to bear in mind if you are thinking about making roles redundant.

This week the Employment Relations Authority ordered Rocket Lab Limited ("Rocket Lab") to pay $97,000.00 to an employee for an unjustified dismissal. Mr Owen was employed by Rocket Lab in January 2018 as a Vehicle Test Manager. Rocket Lab did not give Mr Owen an induction, he was essentially expected to 'get on with it'.