Restrictions OK
Jurisdiction Employment Relations Authority - Wellington
Reference No WA 197/05
Hearing date 19 Dec 2005
Determination date 22 December 2005
Member P R Stapp
Representation S Mitchell ; C Hickson
Location Napier
Parties Meat and Related Trades Workers Union of Aotearoa Inc v Progressive Meats Ltd
Summary DISPUTE - Employees' entitlements on public holiday - Respondent decided that because of seasonality of their work, certain employees were not entitled to relevant daily pay for Queen's Birthday holiday since would not otherwise have worked on that day - Employees in question paid non production rate for that day - Interpretation of Holidays Act and collective employment agreement - Criteria under s12(3) Employment Relations Act 2000 needed to be taken into account - Only necessary to establish that day of week would normally be working day for provision under ERA to apply - Employment agreement provided days of work were Monday to Friday - No provision enabling employer not to provide work on a Monday even if stock was unavailable - Employees generally required to work Mondays or at very least opt to work - Reasonable to conclude that work would have been generally provided on the Monday where the employee was entitled to receive benefit of a public holiday and receive their relevant daily pay - Clause in CEA which provided public holidays would be paid at $10 per hour ineffective - Queen's Birthday Monday would have been an otherwise working day for relevant employees and they were entitled to payment at their relevant daily pay which may not have necessarily been production rate as different circumstances applied to different workers - Parties to discuss calculations for any entitlements of affected employees
Result Question answered in favour of applicant ; Orders accordingly ; Costs reserved
Statutes ERA s53(3);Holidays Act 2003 s12(3);Holidays Act 2003 s49
Number of Pages 8
PDF File Link: wa 197_05.pdf [pdf 31 KB]