We’ve had a lot of questions lately about the calculation of annual holiday pay, whether to use ordinary weekly pay or average weekly earnings, and what should be included in the calculations.

This year the recognised Public Holidays over the Christmas and New Year period are as follows:

With Christmas only a few weeks away, we thought we’d do a brief reminder about Closedown Periods that often occur during this festive time.

When employment relationships start to go pear shaped, employers are often faced with very generalised Privacy Act requests, which can be difficult and time consuming to comply with.  We refer to such requests as a ‘fishing expedition’, whereby an individual makes a formal information privacy request for all information about themselves pursuant to Principle 6 of the Privacy Act 1993.

The Government will update the Equal Pay Act and amend the Employment Relations Act to implement recommendations of the Joint Working Group on Pay Equity.

If you thought working for food or accommodation was volunteering, think again. By law, anyone working in return for food and accommodation is an employee in accordance with section 6 of the Employment Relations Act 2000.

For employees, the law change means they can:

In a recent case out of the Christchurch Employment Relations Authority, two employees were unjustifiably dismissed before they had even commenced work.

From 1 July 2016 the maximum rate of paid parental leave for eligible employees and self-employed parents increased.

Speculation over the 90-day trial period and whether it is valid or not has come to light again with a recent case out of the Employment Relations Authority, see: Clark vs Lighthouse ECE Limited [2016] NZERA Auckland 281.