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Employment Relations Act 2000

Recognition and operation of unions - Union meetings

26: Union meetings

You could also call this:

“Time off work to attend union meetings”

If you are a union member, your employer must let you attend union meetings. You can attend at least one meeting in 2000, and at least two meetings each year after that. Each meeting can be up to two hours long.

Your union must tell your employer when and where the meeting is at least 14 days before it happens. The union must also make sure your employer’s business keeps running while you are at the meeting. This might mean some union members stay at work while others attend the meeting.

You will get back to work as soon as you can after the meeting. Your employer does not have to pay you for more than two hours for the meeting. If you would have been working during the meeting, your employer must pay you as they normally would.

After the meeting, your union must give your employer a list of who attended and how long the meeting was. If your employer does not let you attend a union meeting, they might get a penalty from the Authority.

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View the original legislation for this page at https://legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1986/0120/latest/link.aspx?id=DLM58652.

Topics:
Work and jobs > Worker rights Rights and equality > Anti-discrimination
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25: Penalty for certain acts in relation to entering workplace, or

"Getting in trouble for stopping union reps from doing their job at work"

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27: Registrar of Unions, or

"A person who keeps official records of worker groups and their deputy"

Part 4 Recognition and operation of unions
Union meetings

26Union meetings

  1. An employer must allow every union member employed by the employer to attend—

  2. at least 1 union meeting (of a maximum of 2 hours' duration) in the calendar year 2000; and
    1. at least 2 union meetings (each of a maximum of 2 hours' duration) in each calendar year after the calendar year 2000.

      1. The union must give the employer at least 14 days' notice of the date and time of any union meeting to which subsection (1) applies.

      2. The union must make such arrangements with the employer as may be necessary to ensure that the employer's business is maintained during any union meeting to which subsection (1) applies, including, where appropriate, an arrangement for sufficient union members to remain available during the meeting to enable the employer's operations to continue.

      3. Work must resume as soon as practicable after the meeting, but the employer is not obliged to pay any union member for a period longer than 2 hours in respect of any meeting.

      4. An employer must allow a union member employed by the employer to attend a union meeting under subsection (1) on ordinary pay to the extent that the employee would otherwise be working for the employer during the meeting.

      5. For the purposes of subsection (5), the union must—

      6. supply to the employer a list of members who attended the union meeting; and
        1. advise the employer of the duration of the meeting.

          1. Every employer who fails to allow a union member to attend a union meeting in accordance with this section is liable to a penalty imposed by the Authority.

          Compare
          • 1987 No 77 s 57