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Your minimum employment rights

There are two types of employment rights that apply by law to all employees. Some rights set the minimum pay and conditions you must receive; others set out the way you must be treated at work, including how additional payments and conditions should be agreed and how problems that arise in the workplace should be managed. There are also some additional rights that apply to workers doing certain catering, cleaning, caretaking, laundry and orderly work.

You can’t agree to get rid of any of these rights, but you can agree to things that are better than the minimum.

Health and safety

There are also minimum employment rights and obligations relating to health and safety while at work. In particular:

• Employers must provide a safe workplace, with proper training, supervision and equipment. This duty includes identifying, assessing and managing hazards, and investigating health and safety incidents.
• Employees must take reasonable care to keep themselves safe, and to avoid causing harm to other people by the way they do their work. They may refuse work likely to cause them serious harm. Also, employees have the right to participate in improving health and safety.

For more detailed information on health and safety rights and obligations, please visit: www.osh.dol.govt.nz.

Employment agreements

Every employee employed after 2000 must have a written employment agreement. It can be either an individual agreement or a collective agreement.

There are some provisions that must be included in employment agreements by law, and there are also a number of minimum conditions that must be met regardless of whether they are included in agreements. Employment law also provides a framework for negotiating additional entitlements.

The Department of Labour has created the Employment Agreement Builder to provide guidance to employers and employees on content for the creation of individual employment agreements. For more information on employment agreements, please visit: www.ers.govt.nz/relationships

Minimum pay

There are two levels of minimum wage, one for people who are new entrants and are aged 16-17 or are on the minimum training wage and another for employees aged 16 or over. You must be paid at least the minimum wage if you are:

• a full-time employee
• a part-time or casual employee
• a home-worker, or
• paid totally or partly by commission or on a piece rate.

People doing recognised industry training may be paid the minimum training wage, which is the same rate as the new entrants minimum wage. A small number of people hold an exemption from the minimum wage. Minimum pay rates are reviewed each year. For the current minimum wage levels, please visit www.ers.dol.govt.nz/pay/minimum.html

Your employer generally needs to get your written consent to make deductions from your pay, or to pay your wages in a form other than cash. This consent can be included in your written employment agreement. Some deductions, for example PAYE, student loan and child support, are required by law without written consent. Your employer can’t pay employees differently if the only difference is whether they are male or female.

Minimum holidays

Annual holidays

On each anniversary of the date of commencing employment on or after 1 April 2007, the employee is entitled to four weeks paid annual holidays. The leave can be taken at any time agreed between the employer and the employee. Employees must be given the opportunity to take at least two of the four weeks leave in a continuous period, if they wish to do so. If you leave the employer before completing a full year of employment, holiday pay owing to you would be 8% of your gross earnings. If you have a job that is for a fixed term of less than 12 months, or a casual job where you work so irregularly that it isn’t possible for your employer to give you four weeks’ annual holiday, you can agree to get your holiday pay on a “pay as you go” basis. This means that your holiday pay is included in your regular pay. Your employment agreement has to say clearly that this is how you will be paid, and the amount paid as holiday pay has to be at least 8% and recorded separately on your pay slip or wage, time and holiday records. More information on annual holidays is available on the Department of Labour’s website www.dol.govt.nz

Public holidays

There are 11 public holidays per year, specified in the Holiday Act 2003, and if they fall on days you would normally work you are entitled to be paid for that day. If you work on the public holiday, you must be paid the greater of time and a half or the rate included in your employment agreement for working on the day for the time you work, and if the public holiday falls on a day that you would normally work you are also entitled to an alternative holiday.

You can use our online holidays tool to find out whether you are entitled to a paid public holiday (that is, whether the day would "otherwise be a working day" for you), and what you should be paid (that is, your "relevant daily pay") for your day off or for working on a public holiday: www.ers.govt.nz/holidays-online-tool

Minimum leave

After six months’ employment with an employer, you may become entitled to sick leave, bereavement leave and parental leave. Special eligibility tests apply for people with variable hours and in intermittent employment.

Sick leave

You’re allowed at least five days’ paid sick leave per year. You can take sick leave for yourself, your partner, or person dependant on you for care in the event of sickness or injury. Unused sick leave can accumulate up to 15 days, making possible a total entitlement of 20 days.

Bereavement leave

There are two types of Bereavement leave:

• You’re allowed paid bereavement leave of three days on the death of a spouse, parent, child, sibling, grandparent, grandchild or your spouse’s parent; or
• one day if your employer accepts that you’ve suffered bereavement on the death of any other person not included above.

You can use our online holidays tool to find out whether you are entitled to a paid sick or bereavement leave day, (that is, whether the day would "otherwise be a working day" for you), and what you should be paid (that is, your "relevant daily pay") for your day off: www.ers.govt.nz/holidays-online-tool

Parental leave

You may be entitled to parental leave if you have worked for the same employer for an average of at least 10 hours per week for either the immediately preceding six or  12 months before the expected due date or adoption of a child.

If you meet the six-month employment eligibility criteria or have been self-employed for six months immediately preceding the expected due date or adoption of a child, you may be entitled to 14 weeks’ paid parental leave (some or all of which can be transferred to an eligible spouse/partner).

If you are an employee and meet the 12-month eligibility criteria, you may also be entitled to up to 52 weeks’ extended parental leave (less any paid parental leave taken), which can also be shared with a spouse/partner if they meet the 12-month eligibility criteria.

A spouse/partner with six months’ service may be entitled to an additional one weeks’ unpaid paternity/partner’s leave, and a spouse/partner with 12 months service may be entitled to two weeks’ unpaid paternity/partners leave. Up to 10 days’ unpaid special leave for pregnancy-related reasons is available for a pregnant mother before maternity leave begins.

Other leave rights

You may also be entitled to other rights in some situations.

For example:

• If you’re injured in an accident at work or somewhere else you may be eligible for accident compensation. Your nearest ACC office can give you information about this (see the blue pages in the front of the phone book), or call ACC Claims Enquiries on 0800 101 996.
• If you do full-time or part-time voluntary training in the armed forces, you may be able to get unpaid leave. This can include field exercises, weekend, evening training and other special events.

Other employment rights

In most cases, your employer cannot discriminate in hiring or firing, pay, training or promotion because of your race, colour, national or ethnic origin, sex or sexual orientation, marital or family status, employment status, age, religious belief or political opinion, or if you have a disability, or participate in union activities.

How you should be treated at work

The law requires that employers and employees act in good faith towards each other. This means that each person’s actions should take into account the effect of their behaviour on the other person. When you are offered a job, there are rules regarding how employment conditions are set.

These conditions are set by your employment agreement. The rules for setting the conditions in your employment agreement are different depending on whether there is a union and a collective agreement in your workplace.

Employers must not discourage employees from participating in collective bargaining or being covered by a collective agreement. If there is a collective agreement, negotiated by a union, that covers your work, and you are a member of the union that negotiated it, your conditions are those set out in the collective agreement. You and your employer can agree on extra conditions, but you cannot get less than what is in the collective agreement.

If there’s a collective agreement covering your work, and you’re not a union member, then for the first 30 days you’ll have an individual employment agreement that is the same as the collective agreement. You and your employer can agree on extra conditions. When they offer you the job, your employer must tell you that:

• there is a collective agreement covering your work;
• you have the right to join the union and how to contact the union;
• if you join the union, you’ll be covered by the collective agreement; and
• if you don’t join the union, your terms and conditions are the same as the collective agreement for the first 30 days, along with any agreed additional or better terms.

Your employer must also:

• give you a copy of the collective agreement; and
• if you agree, tell the union that you’ve started work.

If you join a union that signed the collective agreement, your conditions must be at least the same as the collective agreement, but you and your employer can agree to extra conditions over and above those in the collective. If you don’t join a union that signed the collective agreement, after 30 days you will continue to be employed on an individual employment agreement which you and your employer can vary by agreement. If there isn’t a collective agreement covering your work, you and your employer will need to work out an individual employment agreement.

Your employer has to give you a written offer and give you a chance to get advice about it. You can go back to your employer and ask for changes if you want, which the employer must consider and reply to. When you and your employer have agreed, your employer has to give you a written copy of the agreement, containing:

• your employer’s name and your name;
• a description of the work you are to do;
• an indication of where you will work and arrangements relating to your working hours;
• your wage rates or salary, including a provision for at least payment of time and a half for working on a public holiday;
• a plain-language explanation of the services available to you (and your employer) to help sort out any employment relationship problems; and
• a description of the process to be undertaken if the work you perform is restructured due to the sale or outsourcing of the work you perform.

Once you have an agreement, both you and your employer must agree to any changes.

Right to request flexible working arrangements

The Employment Relations (Flexible Working Arrangements) Amendment Act 2007 comes into effect on 1 July 2008.  The Act provides eligible employees with the right to request a variation to their hours of work, days of work, or place of work.

To be eligible to make a request, an employee must be caring for someone and have been employed by their employer for at least six months.  The Act provides a process for how requests are to be made and responded to.  When making a request, the employee must explain how the variation will help them to provide better care for the person concerned.  Employers must consider a request and can refuse it only on certain grounds.  Employers and employees may seek assistance from the Department of Labour about requests for flexible working arrangements.

Extra rights for fixed-term employees

You can agree to be employed for a fixed term rather than being a permanent employee. Your job may be for a certain time (e.g. for six months) or until something happens (e.g. when the project ends) or until work is completed (e.g. until the fruit is picked). You have the same rights as other employees, except that your job will finish at the end of the fixed term. Your employer can only offer you fixed-term employment where:

• there are real reasons for it (like seasonal work, project work, or where you are filling in for a permanent employee on leave), and
• they tell you the reasons and how or when the employment will end, and you agree to this in your employment agreement.

Like other employment agreements, fixed-term agreements must be in writing.

Extra rights for employees doing certain catering, cleaning, caretaking, laundry and orderly work

Special rules apply to employees who do this work where their employer’s business is sold or their work is contracted out or given to a new contractor. Assistance can be sought by visiting www.dol.govt.nz or by contacting the Department of Labour on freephone 0800 20 90 20.

Union membership rights

You have the right to decide whether you want to join a union and, if so, which union. It is illegal for an employer or anyone else to put unreasonable pressure on you to join or not to join a union, or to discriminate against you because you joined or didn’t join a union. Union members may be nominated by their union to undertake employment relations education on paid leave, and have rights to attend paid union meetings. You can also require your employer to deduct union fees from your wages and pay them to the union. You can ask your union about this.

Employment relationship problems

Sometimes you might be worried about something at work. Maybe you’re not sure if your employer is paying you enough, or letting you have the leave you should get. Perhaps you think your employer has done something unfair, or hasn’t stopped something unfair happening. First, you should check your facts, and talk about the problem with your union or a family member or friend, or with an advisor. You could either visit www.dol.govt.nz or contact the Department of Labour on freephone 0800 20 90 20 for information about your rights and obligations, and what to do. You should talk about the problem with your employer. You might want to take a union representative, or a family member, or friend, or other representative to support you. If you and your employer can’t resolve the problem by talking, you or your employer can ask the Department of Labour for assistance to help sort things out. A mediator or a labour inspector may be able to help. The service is free: call 0800 20 90 20 to find out more.

If mediation or a labour inspector doesn’t solve the problem, then you or your employer or, in some cases, the labour inspector can take the problem to the Employment Relations Authority or later to the Employment Court.

This pamphlet gives you the basic information you need to understand your minimum legal rights. This pamphlet is a guide only and may not be accurate for all situations. It should not be used as a substitute for legislation or for legal or other expert advice.

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This page was last updated on: 15-May-2008 and is current.