| Restrictions | OK |
|---|---|
| Jurisdiction | Employment Relations Authority - Wellington |
| Reference No | WA 7/06 |
| Hearing date | 21 Dec 2005 |
| Determination date | 25 January 2006 |
| Member | G J Wood;G J Wood |
| Representation | T R Thamer (in person) ; H Kynaston |
| Location | Wellington |
| Parties | Thamer v Massey University |
| Summary | UNJUSTIFIED DISADVANTAGE - Parties agreed to consent order in March 2005 - Events before then not able to be taken into account - Applicant's concerns re-emerged after first settlement - Were a number of allegations - In the interests of justice, and since was ongoing employment relationship, Authority decided to investigate and determine all matters before it in evidence rather than restrict it to matters prior to filing of employment relationship problem - Applicant alleged was effectively required to do 2-3 others jobs - Was a staff vacancy but not appropriate to lay blame on any party - Manager decided to deal with issue by prioritisation, delegation and contracting out of work if necessary - Decision entirely within his prerogative - Review of IT instituted - Applicant declined to be involved - Not accepted that was an exercise designed to make applicant's job even more intolerable - Respondent entitled to undertake such reviews - No legal grounds to challenge it - Applicant declined assistance by contractors because he had past difficulties dealing with contractors - Applicant voluntarily worked significant amount of overtime - Did not have overtime approved as required - Accepted health and safety concerns of respondent should that amount of hours allowed to be continued unchecked - Applicant unwilling or unable to accept direction from manager in any area he disagreed with - Insisted on taking full responsibility for overall functioning of his part of the IT operation despite his manager making it clear that he was not so responsible - No threatening or unreasonable behaviour by manager - Manager's occasional tardy response to communication not disadvantage - Authority could not intervene in yet to be completed performance assessment process - Racial harassment - Alleged comment about applicant's birth country not being a safe place to visit not racial harassment - Made in conversational context and others present could not recall such comments - Concern that applicant the only one who had been treated in the way he was too general to ever be sustained as racial harassment - No unjustified disadvantage - COSTS - Process made more difficult because of generalities of claims and lack of specific details - Costs in favour of respondent $3,000 - Manager |
| Result | Application dismissed ; Costs in favour of respondent ($3,000) |
| Cases Cited | Honda NZ Ltd v NZ (with exceptions) Shipwrights etc Union [1990] 3 NZILR 23 ; [1991] 1 NZLR 392 |
| Number of Pages | 10 |
| PDF File Link: | wa 7_06.pdf [pdf 50 KB] |