Restrictions OK
Jurisdiction Employment Relations Authority - Auckland
Reference No AA 448/05
Hearing date 5 Sep 2005
Determination date 21 November 2005
Member K J Anderson
Representation G Pollak ; P Tremewan
Location Auckland
Parties The New Zealand Amalgamated Engineering Printing and Manufacturing Union Inc v Energex Ltd
Summary DISPUTE - Applicant raised concern relating to certain conditions being imposed" on employees upon acceptance of an offer from employer to complete specific training - As part of training, employees agreed to health check, that would be no annual leave during that time, that there would be no overtime paid nor staying away/meal allowances - Also agreed that would be bonded to employment for two years and if resigned in that time would be required to pay part of training costs back - Whether breach of collective agreement - Bonding arrangement not breach of CEA - Entirely reasonable for respondent to make some attempt to protect investment made in specialised training of employees - Employees willingly entered bonding agreements - Substantial financial incentive to employees to undertake training - Not unreasonable or inconsistent with provisions of CEA - Not unreasonable to withhold approval of annual leave for the seven week training period - Employees could be taken to have accepted that overtime provisions of CEA not applicable to circumstances pertaining to training course - Alleged that preventing payment of staying away allowance was inconsistent with s61(1) Employment Relations Act 2000 - The agreement entered into by employees undertaking training could not be viewed as additional terms and conditions - No entitlement to meal allowance - No breach of terms of CEA nor inconsistent with CEA or s61(1) ERA"
Result Question answered in favour of respondent
Statutes ERA s61(1);Holidays Act 2003 s18(1);Holidays Act 2003 s18(4)
Number of Pages 7
PDF File Link: aa 448_05.pdf [pdf 42 KB]