NZ Post loses postie pay battle

[TrueBlueTerrier]

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A six-year legal battle by NZ Post over how to calculate holiday pay has ended in failure with the Supreme Court denying the state-owned enterprise leave to appeal.

But the amount now due to be paid to posties is still being calculated.

NZ Post and the Postal Workers Union of Aotearoa, representing 1200 posties, have been at loggerheads over how to calculate "relevant daily pay" under the Holidays Act and whether unrostered overtime for postal delivery workers should be included, and if so, when.

A Supreme Court ruling released today rejected NZ Post's bid to appeal an earlier Court of Appeal ruling favouring the union.

In dismissing the appeal, the Supreme Court said: "The case does not give rise to any question of public or general importance. As well, there is no appearance of a miscarriage of justice."

Union national secretary Graeme Clarke welcomed the ruling .

"It's been a long road," Clarke said. "It was 2008 when all this started. It's excellent news - and you can quote me on that."

The Court of Appeal overturned an Employment Court decision that an employee had to establish that he or she would have worked overtime on the day in question and the actual amount they would have received.

The Court of Appeal found responsibility lay with the employer to meet the statutory obligation to pay the minimum entitlement for the day in question.

It said in many if not most cases involving posties it would be simply impossible to establish that unrostered overtime would have been worked on a particular day and for how long.

The Holidays Act included a formula for practically calculating relevant daily pay where it would be otherwise impossible to do so, the judgment said.

The Employment Court interpretation would defeat the statutory purpose of including that subsection under the act, it said.

Posties work on a roster of 37.5 fulltime hours each week but are expected to work unrostered overtime where necessary to complete their delivery round so that NZ Post meets its obligations to deliver mail on any given day.

They are also expected to help cover someone else's round if they are away sick or injured.

The amount of unrostered overtime varies but the average nationally is 1.6 per cent of their total hours or about 6.2 minutes per day. And most of the unrostered overtime - 71 per cent - is regularly incurred by about a quarter of the posties.

A NZ Post spokesman said the state-owned enterprise would abide by the Court of Appeal decision, and work needed to be done to calculate the amount of holiday pay owing.

Clarke said he looked forward to sitting down with NZ Post and was hopeful a negotiated settlement would allow pay owing to be quickly paid.

[UnhappyGremlin]

I can see the CWU and RM in court at some point in the next few years. If it does happen, hope we fair as well as our NZ counterparts.

[watt tyler]

I can see the CWU and RM in court at some point in the next few years. If it does happen, hope we fair as well as our NZ counterparts.

with some eton educated judge adjudicating. i fear the outcome will be predictable.

[UnhappyGremlin]

I can see the CWU and RM in court at some point in the next few years. If it does happen, hope we fair as well as our NZ counterparts.

with some eton educated judge adjudicating. i fear the outcome will be predictable.

So cynical.