NO RESPECT FOR THE COURT OR THOSE WAITING FOR THEIR ENTITLEMENTS

Earlier this month the Employment Court ruled that the parental leave payment designed to encourage NZPFU members to return to work from parental leave for at least six months must be paid regardless of the period of parental leave.

The Employment Relations Authority and the Employment Court both agreed with the NZPFU position that the clause applied to all that had been on parental leave up to 12 months leave and had completed a further 6 months service upon their return to work.

This week the NZPFU lawyer has written to FENZ requiring the payments to be made, and putting FENZ on notice we will file seeking compliance and penalties.  We will file promptly if FENZ do not make the payments now!

Some of our members have been waiting years for the payment after FENZ unilaterally refused to make the contractual payment for anyone who sought less than 12 months parental leave.  

Our members should have received the payments forthwith but instead FENZ is stalling claiming that a process had to be determined before payments were made. 

The NZPFU believes this is a continuation of wage theft behaviour.

We are still getting reports of members being deducted for strikes when they were not working during that strike and were never rostered to do so.  Others have had more than the hour’s pay deducted.

Then there is the sick leave remediation which has taken years to achieve and unilaterally determining that the payments will only be calculated to 2024 at this stage, refusing to make the calculations and payments from 2024 to now.

For the background on this case and the clause click here.

In unity,
Wattie Watson
National Secretary