Originally Posted by
Telfer86
Air New Zealand is a state owned enterprise that has already been bailed out from bankruptcy once this century by NZ government
Under NZ Law, AirNZ is not a SOE, an SOE requires 100% government ownership and would not be listed on the NZX or ASX. Yes the government did own 75% until the mid 2010s, until the government sold down its shareholding to around 50%. An SOE will require a Government minister to appoint the board and would report solely to the government, not to the public.
The main difference is that under NZ employment law, there is no stand down provisions, so any LWOP must be negotiated by the company and employees, otherwise employees must remain on full pay. The only stand down provisions are for factory workers who may have an annual stand down to cover maintenance periods, however such time periods of the stand down must be in the employment agreement and the pay rate applicability during that time is also stated, annual leave is not permitted to be used to cover the stand down, and stand downs are not permitted to be unpaid.
When it came to this stand down the QF group basically told its NZ based staff to take LWOP, or be made redundant. They weren’t the only Australian based company to try and pull that trick in NZ during the Covid situation. The courts have already decided for one company the agreement for LWOP with a threat of redundancy is illegal and full back pay must be paid with an extra harm payment of $12,000 per affected employee handed down.
Since the precedent has been made in the court, and MBIE have also fined that company just over $1.2M on top of the court directed costs, it will be interesting to see how the unions deal with the QF group. I understand that MBIE are taking a very hard line with companies who fail to comply with NZ employment law during this time.