Plain language law

New Zealand law explained for everyone

Employment Relations Act 2000

Recognition and operation of unions - Union meetings

26: Union meetings

You could also call this:

“The law says workers can go to special meetings to talk about their jobs and rights.”

You have the right to go to union meetings at work. If you’re a member of a union, your employer must let you attend these meetings. In the year 2000, you could go to one meeting that lasted up to two hours. From 2001 onwards, you can go to two meetings each year, with each meeting lasting up to two hours.

Your union needs to tell your employer about the meeting at least 14 days before it happens. They need to say when the meeting will be held.

The union also needs to make sure that your employer’s business can still run during the meeting. This might mean that some union members stay at work while others go to the meeting.

After the meeting, you need to go back to work as soon as you can. Your employer only has to pay you for up to two hours for the meeting time.

Your employer should pay you your normal wages for the time you’re at the meeting, as long as you would have been working during that time anyway.

The union needs to tell your employer who went to the meeting and how long it lasted.

If your employer doesn’t let you go to a union meeting when they should, they might get in trouble with the Employment Relations 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

“You can get in trouble if you stop union representatives from coming into your workplace without a good reason.”

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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