The Government has passed a change to the Employment Relations Act that reinstates the ability for employers to make pay deductions during partial strikes.
Workplace Relations and Safety Minister, Brooke van Velden said the changes will help both employers and unions to return to the bargaining table and restores the law to what it was before the previous government removed this option in 2018.
“I acknowledge the right of workers to strike in support of their collective bargaining claims, the right to strike remains,” says Ms van Velden.
The Minister said the changes were needed to ensure a fairer bargaining process and minimise the disruption partial strikes have caused to public and customer services.
“The key benefit for all workers and the public is less disruption to our communities – partial strikes had serious impacts on Kiwi families, students, patients, and other workers across our workplaces,” she said.
“Some of the impacts included MRI and nuclear medicine technologists limiting scans, around 50% fewer procedures were done. That meant delays in early cancer treatment, growing waitlists, increased outsourcing costs and pressure on front-line staff to pick up the work of others participating in the partial strikes.”
In 2023, teachers took partial strike action, refusing to teach certain year levels on specific days, said Ms van Velden.
“This disrupted student learning and made it hard for some parents to work.”
Since mid-September 2024, NZDF PSA union members have been ‘working-to-rule’, and from November, they have been taking coordinated breaks and stopped working at heights or off-site. In response, the Minister of Defence has authorised uniformed personnel to cover civilian work in some selected areas.
In September 2024, train operators in Wellington began work-to-rule industrial action including refusing shift changes, leading to disruption for travellers.
“Rebalancing collective bargaining settings will support the Government’s priority to deliver better public services, by reducing disruption and maintaining a high quality of service.”
This new law allows for pay to be deducted during partial strikes, but it’s up to each affected employer to decide how they respond to partial strikes when they occur, the Minister said.
A partial strike is industrial action that would normally involve turning up to work but refusing to partake in parts of the job. Until now, if an employee was on a partial strike, their employer could not deduct their pay unless they suspended the employee or issued a lockout notice.
Under the change, employers can now respond to a partial strike by either:
- reducing an employee’s pay by a proportionate amount, calculated in accordance with a specified method that is based on identifying the work that the employee will not be performing due to the strike; or
- deducting 10% of their wages;
- Employers will have to provide written notification to employees that they will be reducing their pay before the deduction is made (the amount of deduction is not required in the notice);
- If the union believes the employer has incorrectly applied a pay deduction, the union must advise the employer of that as soon as practicable, after receiving the employer’s information on how they calculated the specified pay deduction if relevant. The union can apply to the Employment Relations Authority, who can determine whether the employer has correctly applied the deduction;
- Employers do not have to deduct pay in response to partial strikes – this simply provides an additional tool for how they can respond to a partial strike, if it works for them.
