Legal

The CTU determination to stick by workers unfairly dismissed under the 90 day law delivered results today after the Employment Court found young pharmacy worker Heather Smith was not only unjustifiably dismissed by her employer (due to a failure to comply with the contracting requirements of the Employment Relations Act), but the employer’s failure to treat her in good faith or to comply wi

"Workers who negotiate redundancy agreements should be able to be confident those agreements will protect them when a business becomes insolvent and they lose their jobs," Council of Trade Unions present Ross Wilson said this morning.

The Council of Trade Unions is calling for the restoration of personal grievance rights after the release of a report showing a pro-employer trend in decisions in the Court of Appeal.

"A very conservative decision which disregards the international law on which the Employment Relations Act is based," Council of Trade Unions president Ross Wilson said today.Ross Wilson was commenting on the Employment Court decision in N Z Dairy Workers v N Z Milk Products (Fonterra) which struck down an agreed arrangement between the employer and the union requiring non union members to contribute to the cost of the wage increases and other benefits negotiated on their behalf.

"It seems a fair principle that employees who benefit from the work of the collective bargaining group should contribute to the costs of bargaining," Ross Wilson said.

"Such an agreement has been ruled to be entirely consistent with the International Labour Conventions on which the Employment Relations Act is based."

Ross Wilson said union members were sick of free loaders who picked up the benefits of the union's bargaining work.

"But the Employment Court has identified some technical barriers to giving full effect to the international law jurisprudence in New Zealand," he said.

"More than 300,000 union members will be disappointed by the decision."

"This is a landmark decision confirming the right of unions to gain access to workplaces during a strike to monitor compliance by employers with the prohibition on hiring alternative strike breakers," president of the Council of Trade Unions Ross Wilson said today.