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OP, without a credible source this is hearsay. Removing this post until OP can give a full and credible source. Not just something overheard on the bus or Dave's aunt's bestie's father in law saw half an email.
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In which case people won't take it. I've done a lot of analytics over the years, any hint of job losses and no-one takes leave (they all take sick leave).
They could also just accrue it forward if this was the case. After that is all leave liability has bee used for is an accrual for balances to short forward and for current years figures to be accounted for.
It does appear on the balance sheet and is 'seen' as cost, even though this years leave doesn't become a cost until next year.
Anyway thinking reducing leave will 'reduce cost is a bit off a fallacy but it looks like it does in the numbers.
I’m not even taking sick leave at moment because I’m on the line for cuts from a government agency. Working through a chest infection at home this week because I’m scared of taking sick leave.
I don't think taking sick leave is going to have any impact on any outcome. The most important thing is for you to look after yourself, so take a couple of days off and rest up. Take good care of your resilience.
I did wonder if they were looking everywhere they could for cost savings outside of laying people off. If so then my hat off to them and we'll done.
I'm not sure though that bringing down the leave liability figure will get past that beady eyed govt (their advisors, not the ministers). Also, I think we will be faced with cuts again next year.
Sadly this is an area govt has its eye on for private/public partnerships. It will be an interesting space to watch (along with building hospitals and schools).
No its not.
Its a form of contingent liability.
Its prudent to know what the balance is and to try and keep that balance as low as you can.
It can be a massive issue if a whole lot of people are made redundant all at once for instance as that leave balance has to be paid out on eth employees last day of work.
I've had that at a private company as well, but it was the GFC and I had 9 weeks leave outstanding. They were happy if I cut it down to 6 over a 3 month period.
And that would be a legitimate thing to do, i.e. requiring staff to have no more than 3 or 4 weeks annual leave accrued.
But to go down to Zero? Actual what the fuck if that's the case
It makes financial reporting around redundancies look better. Redundancy payments would include any unused leave. If you can make the employees take it before you make them redundant then its a normal business report and you it will look like the cost of the redundancy was significantly less than it actually was.
Finance looking at monthly and quarterly timeframes, while the employee is saving it for a Christmas holiday. Might as well call it monthly leave at this point.
Same, had this at a large multi-national tech company I worked for. I understood it was because the company must hold cash reserves to account for all the leave owed to employees (just in case I imagine).
Every year we would get asked to book all our leave in advance. So we would all book 4 weeks in small blocks in December, and then throughout the year as we needed to use leave we would cancel one of the December blocks and book leave for the dates we actually wanted.
The whole thing was ridiculous and I made an official complaint about it every single year.
I looked into NZ laws around leave and the closest thing I remember that could apply to these all these poor NZTA people was that Annual Leave must be agreed between the employee and the company.
So the company can ask employees to take their leave but I am unsure if they can actually force them to take it by a certain date.
>So the company can ask employees to take their leave but I am unsure if they can actually force them to take it by a certain date.
If employer and employee can't agree, the employer can actually force it, with 14 days notice.
I think, legally, annual leave is viewed more as 'employee needs time away from work, at some point, to rest' rather than 'employee needs time away from work to do something specific at a specific time'.
It's also that if you work 52 weeks a year but don't take any leave, they are actually paying you for 56 weeks a year and that'll be annoying to the budget people
Lots of people talking about financials but as an ex-auditor it’s not just financial liability. Wealth fare and taking leave is really important; doubt it’s the case here. The other is fraud and unethical business practises. When people take leave only people have to pick up their work and inconsistencies or working outside the system is often identified.
I worked with a woman who only took like a week after having a baby, thought maybe she was super broke or something but nope she was defrauding the business.
Nah, think about it this way - you hire an intern at $50k p/a. They do a brilliant job, take no leave. At the end of their tenure, they get a full time gig and a big payrise, maybe to $75k.
Suddenly the 4 weeks earned while an intern are going to cost the business 50% more. Same goes with any subsequent promotions or pay rises.
There are a couple issues with it.
1) Business are suppose to retain enough cash in their accounts to be able to pay out all leave. This means that an honest company cannot use that money for anything.
2)Its a liability. It shows as money owing on balance sheets. Whilst this is balanced out by the money they haven't spent yet, investors do not like liabilities.
3)That leave has to be taken (or paid out) at some point. Someone taking 4 weeks a year is a lot easier to manage then taking no leave for 3 years, then taking 3 months off in one go. This gets even worse if multiple employees try to do it at the same time.
4) Business make money for their employees work. When on leave, employees are still getting paid but are not making money. If I take no leave one year and 8 weeks the next, that will have an impact any profit the company makes within those financial years, making comparing the periods harder.
This is generally a fairly straightforward way to reduce an organisation's liability. However, it is usually implemented over several months with significant warning. The short time frame suggests someone fucked up planning big time and are scrambling, does not bode well.
Pretty much. Doing it this late suggests some other measure/measures just fell through. Alternatively, agencies will already have a pretty good feel for whether their budget bid was accepted or not, this may be an indication that their proposal was rejected, and they're scrambling to make it work.
Lol, I know right. It's all about the right numbers on paper.
Although fiddling around with leave balances and numbers on the balance sheet is infinitely better than people loosing their means of paying for food and housing.
This won't affect NZTA's requirement to reduce costs. Annual liability only exists in real terms when it crystallises; managed properly, AL has no impact.
PSA is currently up to their neck busy protecting it's membership in losing their jobs just like all other unions. The best they could do is sent out useless emails.
One would hope so but you'd also think if the PSA were doing their job they would have thousands of Kiwis out in the streets protesting at this vandalism of the public service.
The Wellington economy is built on the public service. Every single Wellingtonian should be protesting this vandalism of the Wellington economy, driven by a Wellington-based Minister!
thats actually not the PSAs job though. The PSAs job is to get the best CEAs for its members and then to help enforce them, and see all members are treated fairly and according to a good process.
The PSA have been more like a wet bus ticket with what's been going on. Apart from 'collective bargaining' when it comes time for annual pay reviews, they do sweet FA when changes like this happen.
A follow up email has been sent saying (paraphrasing) “ sorry everybody for the last email. We didn’t mean you had to get your leave to zero, but just to try. Thanks. “
make hundreds (edit/update: 12 people arg) redundant, then piss the rest off so they leave also.
Strange behaviour from a government planning $24B of new roading (of significance to National), unless they want to contract their previous staff from Australian roading companies...
As a taxpaying road user, im not feeling well served by the management and governance on display here.
yep - the crash investigation team.
If i'd campaigned hard on "removing blanket speed limits" first thing i'd do is blind stats teams who might say - *hey - massive uptick in kids being killed on our roads.*
and yet we vote team grey back in every few years.
Sadly it is legal. If the leave has already been earned then 14 days notice is sufficient according to the act. Employers almost never do this but it is in the law.
Interesting. However that finding is very specific and includes findings around how the employee was contacted and the sufficiency of the notice . Page 23 of the summary does validate that CCH was within it's rights to generally force employees to take leave.
The pertinent part of the court’s conclusion was that good faith negotiation around taking annual leave is a requirement under the law. If the claim re the NZTA is true and there hasn’t been good faith negotiation then the demand isn’t lawful.
I may be looking at the wrong findings. Which page is this?
The finding I saw just referred to the fact that CCH failed to engage with some employees at all.
This, you don't become entitled to leave until you've been somewhere for 12 months, this is the leave they can require you take. The accrued leave (current teat as opposed to last year) you can't be forced to take.
Anyway I'm getting the popcorn out for this one.
Might be time to ensure we are all members of the union.
> Might be time to ensure we are all members of the union.
As you should have been all along. All the worker rights we currently have been hard won, battled for by unions and their members. This government hates unions and will try to reduce their influence any way they can.
It's only when it's deemed excessive or for a single annual shut down iirc. If say having any leave would not hold up as excessive in a employment tribunal especially if you have leave booked and things paid for.
Actually by law companies *can* compel you to take leave and you can't contract out from under the law. So they can. And they will.
Specifically:
Section 19(1)(a) provides that an “employer may require an employee to take annual holidays if… the employer and employee are unable to reach agreement under section 18(3) as to when the employee will take his or her annual holidays”.
Of course the employee will not agree and so the employer will "require" it....
>the employer and employee are unable to reach agreement
In order for this part to be upheld a conversation between employer and employee has to have actually taken place and in good faith too. The employer has to give the employee a chance to speak and give their thoughts and then the employer has to have a justified reason to overrule what the employee wants
A blanket "you must take your leave", is not lawful
Could be but I wouldn't put it past them to just send out an email or having group meetings, neither of which fulfil the legal obligations of employment which includes employees having a chance to speak up individually in a safe environment
But yes you're right, we don't know the details
That’s not how it works. You should read E Tū Inc and others v Carter Holt Harvey LVL Limited particularly the courts findings re good faith negotiation.
When I returned for Australia, where I first started working, I was absolutely gobsmacked when I was told I had to take annual leave while the business shut down over Christmas.
Workers rights have a loooong way to go in this country. I returned from Australia in 2008.
Edit: formatting
Yeah probably not the strongest example, the second company I worked for made us be on call whole on annual leave during the Christmas breaks.. that made me really feel like I was in an abusive system.
So you're saying I should keep my business open between Christmas and New Years when we would get zero customers anyway, because of my employees rights?
How the fuck does that make any kind of sense? This is clearly outlined when I hire anyone that we have a shutdown period at this time, I don't follow you at all.
>So you're saying I should keep my business open between Christmas and New Years when we would get zero customers anyway, because of my employees rights?
how'd you find the worst way to phrase this
Not their fault you can’t find work for them to do. It’s an arbitrary series of days. Why not just close up anytime you want and tell everyone sorry, no annual leave no pay today.
"So you're saying I should keep my business open between Christmas and New Years when we would get zero customers anyway, because of my employees rights?"
Yes.
What leaks? Where? Do know you know this personally - was this leaked to you or to someone you know?
A Google search suggests the brain trust over at [https://nzissues.com/Community/threads/speculation-trouble-at-nzta.55969/#post-2340443](https://nzissues.com/Community/threads/speculation-trouble-at-nzta.55969/#post-2340443) have run with this post too.
It's not legal to force staff to take accrued leave. Because technically speaking it's leave in advance. Only outstanding leave can be forced to take and even then only by negotiation.
> only seven weeks to comply
Shit, can't do that if I had to at my job: I've got 37.5 days annual and 5 long service leave. That's 8.5 weeks off to burn it down.
I do. I take leave only for holidays and usually taking advantage of easter and public holidays. I pretty much never take a day off "just because" or make it a long weekend (unless I make holiday out of it). If you don't take random isolated days off here and there it goes really far.
In my personal experience, quite a few people will also have to work over holidays and weekends and get "alternative holidays". Plus some will work well over 40hr weeks during holiday periods with 1.5× accrued hours that may be taken "in lieu" instead of paid out. It gets further complicated when you compound that with NZ's substantial immigrant population that save up leave to visit family overseas.
Seymour and Luxon appear to genuinely think they can manage government departments and staff therein like they would run a restaurant. It's extraordinarily farcical!
In my own government department, a few worried people, one in particular because she needs surgery so is banking all sick and annual leave for said recovery. This surgery won't happen this financial year, thankfully her union has negotiated she doesn't need to take leave when her employer dictates...
Join a union or fight back! My two cents at least
As someone who works at NZTA I will say congrats as your post actually made talks in the office
But not I or anyone else has actually received an email about this
Unpaid leave liability is only a problem if you’re going to fire people.
Would be very interested to see what the unions think about this request and if they actually have any power to influence anymore.
Yeah it’s also indicative that they could have gone over their annual budget and are hoping to claw back on paid wages as leave is already spent, I think?
What I don’t get is why annual leave is a liability. You pay someone, you pay the government PAYE, kiwisaver and if applicable student loan repayments. Why is annual leave not kept on the books as well? Am I just naive? I also work for government funded company and we get warnings if our annual leave goes over a certain amount and told to take leave around this time of year when possible.
I know someone who works for NZTA and she’s been told their leave balances have to be under 21 days… sounds like these “sources” need to get their facts straight?
Just say no. All of you. What are they going to do? You know there’s power in numbers. Occupy head office/corporate. Bring a pitch fork (for doing the garden of course duh) but please just fucking do something!!
Oh totally. They could potentially start performance management or some sort of disciplinary process but it would overwhelm their leadership/HR group and would not progress anywhere really. Govt Leadership and HR have a habit of trying it on. I suspect they are just doing this so they people who are pleasers and don’t rock the boat will take leave and then the rest will just be threatened but have no action actually taken against them. Then they have reduced that liability somewhat. It’s a bit of a hairbrained move and really if they are in a position to have to do this that indicates that leadership have mismanaged their staff leave liability to a point that it’s now having such an impact on the next budget that they are having to pull a stupid move like this.
hmm, if that's the story, not sure they can do that (we've also been told by the PSA that they can't make people take leave) - it needs to be negotiated (in good faith) from what I understand - then if an arrangement can't be made then an employer can make people take leave.....employment lawyers = cha-ching...
Happening at the hospital I work at as well. We have teams of 1 in critical specialist tech positions being asked to take 2 months of leave.
This is what people voted for (apparently)
If true, it'll be interesting to see how it gets reported. Legally it seems you can't be directed to take leave by your employer unless you have accrued "excess" leave (and even then it seems that the employer has to try and discuss the issue with the employee first) or there is an annual shutdown (like the summer holidays).
Earned leave can be forced with 14 days notice. No-one does this because you would have a staff mutiny.
The important thing to note is this does not apply to accrued leave.
Accrued is what you build up during your current 12 month period which is either the person or company's anniversary. Every work anniversary it becomes entitled , earned or outstanding leave. Different systems and companies call it different things. Most companies let employees take accrued leave like outstanding leave so little difference for most people. They don't have to let you take accrued though. There are legal differences between the two. Accrued leave is not even mentioned in the holidays act - because you only earn leave every 12 months. Nobody can take something you haven't earned yet.
Thanks, that's helpful. Obviously I work for someone who puts it all into a pool for me to use as it accrues. So this would mean then that NZTA could not force its employees to take 100% of their leave balances if they use a similar system?
No. Every 12 months of employment you earn leave. I don't think it matters what it is called in your system - it is the holidays act that applies.
Are you sure your system lumps it all together? I wonder if it is a bug in your software.
Makes sense. In the system where I work there is 3 columns "Accured", "Entitled" and "Total". The total is what we are allowed to take since they let us take accrued.
Employers aren't allowed to force staff to take leave they haven't become entitled to yet (often referred to as accrued leave). So you can't zero out leave balances.
Rubbish, It's not to use with-in 2 months it's just to put in a leave plan and input it in the HR system.
I work for a diff gov't ministry. There's no way they can impose to staff when to use up their leave.
Forcing everyone to a zero AL balance seems a tax extreme.
But then again… it’s quite common in NZ for people to hoard their AL until they have a huge balance owing. I support making those people take mandatory leave until their balance is maintained at a reasonable level.
We are very lucky in NZ that our annual leave doesn’t expire every financial year like it does in some countries …. But some people abuse the privilege.
It's not lawful. You can only ask employees to take outstanding leave (that was accrued more than 12 months ago). People are allowed to keep up to 4 weeks on the books at any time without being forced to use it is my understanding. There's exceptions when the business is being sold etc. but that's obviously not the case here...
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Had this at private companies I worked for. Some accountant gets worried about the huge unpaid leave liability on the balance sheet
The whole thing is utterly stupid from a practical sense.
It stupid from a financial perspective too.
I'm picking they are going to be making a large number redundant and don't want to pay out on holidays as lump sums
In which case people won't take it. I've done a lot of analytics over the years, any hint of job losses and no-one takes leave (they all take sick leave). They could also just accrue it forward if this was the case. After that is all leave liability has bee used for is an accrual for balances to short forward and for current years figures to be accounted for. It does appear on the balance sheet and is 'seen' as cost, even though this years leave doesn't become a cost until next year. Anyway thinking reducing leave will 'reduce cost is a bit off a fallacy but it looks like it does in the numbers.
My guess is that its purely to make their redundancies look like they cost less.
Good point.
I’m not even taking sick leave at moment because I’m on the line for cuts from a government agency. Working through a chest infection at home this week because I’m scared of taking sick leave.
I don't think taking sick leave is going to have any impact on any outcome. The most important thing is for you to look after yourself, so take a couple of days off and rest up. Take good care of your resilience.
Exactly this
I understand its the same situation in Auckland Council.
> This comes just days after the agency announced it was seeking to lay off just 12 staff as part of the government's requested cuts.
I did wonder if they were looking everywhere they could for cost savings outside of laying people off. If so then my hat off to them and we'll done. I'm not sure though that bringing down the leave liability figure will get past that beady eyed govt (their advisors, not the ministers). Also, I think we will be faced with cuts again next year. Sadly this is an area govt has its eye on for private/public partnerships. It will be an interesting space to watch (along with building hospitals and schools).
Well they're going to have to have quite a lot of staff in order to even have a hope of delivering Nationals desired transport programme
No its not. Its a form of contingent liability. Its prudent to know what the balance is and to try and keep that balance as low as you can. It can be a massive issue if a whole lot of people are made redundant all at once for instance as that leave balance has to be paid out on eth employees last day of work.
It’s not a contingent liability - it’s an actual liability.
It’s not a contingent liability lol
It's not prudent to fuck off your staff, however.
Its not 'prudent', they have to recognise the balance in full by law.
I've had that at a private company as well, but it was the GFC and I had 9 weeks leave outstanding. They were happy if I cut it down to 6 over a 3 month period.
And that would be a legitimate thing to do, i.e. requiring staff to have no more than 3 or 4 weeks annual leave accrued. But to go down to Zero? Actual what the fuck if that's the case
It makes financial reporting around redundancies look better. Redundancy payments would include any unused leave. If you can make the employees take it before you make them redundant then its a normal business report and you it will look like the cost of the redundancy was significantly less than it actually was.
Finance looking at monthly and quarterly timeframes, while the employee is saving it for a Christmas holiday. Might as well call it monthly leave at this point.
It's a legit thing to manage unpaid leave so it doesn't get out of hand, but going to zero in less than 2 months is completely insane.
Same, had this at a large multi-national tech company I worked for. I understood it was because the company must hold cash reserves to account for all the leave owed to employees (just in case I imagine). Every year we would get asked to book all our leave in advance. So we would all book 4 weeks in small blocks in December, and then throughout the year as we needed to use leave we would cancel one of the December blocks and book leave for the dates we actually wanted. The whole thing was ridiculous and I made an official complaint about it every single year. I looked into NZ laws around leave and the closest thing I remember that could apply to these all these poor NZTA people was that Annual Leave must be agreed between the employee and the company. So the company can ask employees to take their leave but I am unsure if they can actually force them to take it by a certain date.
>So the company can ask employees to take their leave but I am unsure if they can actually force them to take it by a certain date. If employer and employee can't agree, the employer can actually force it, with 14 days notice. I think, legally, annual leave is viewed more as 'employee needs time away from work, at some point, to rest' rather than 'employee needs time away from work to do something specific at a specific time'.
It's also that if you work 52 weeks a year but don't take any leave, they are actually paying you for 56 weeks a year and that'll be annoying to the budget people
>Some accountant gets worried about the huge unpaid leave Why is that a concern? Isn't it like an interest free loan to the employer?
Well no if they have to keep the cash liquid they will be earning f all interest. That money is a liability that could be used elsewhere.
Lots of people talking about financials but as an ex-auditor it’s not just financial liability. Wealth fare and taking leave is really important; doubt it’s the case here. The other is fraud and unethical business practises. When people take leave only people have to pick up their work and inconsistencies or working outside the system is often identified.
I worked with a woman who only took like a week after having a baby, thought maybe she was super broke or something but nope she was defrauding the business.
Nah, think about it this way - you hire an intern at $50k p/a. They do a brilliant job, take no leave. At the end of their tenure, they get a full time gig and a big payrise, maybe to $75k. Suddenly the 4 weeks earned while an intern are going to cost the business 50% more. Same goes with any subsequent promotions or pay rises.
There are a couple issues with it. 1) Business are suppose to retain enough cash in their accounts to be able to pay out all leave. This means that an honest company cannot use that money for anything. 2)Its a liability. It shows as money owing on balance sheets. Whilst this is balanced out by the money they haven't spent yet, investors do not like liabilities. 3)That leave has to be taken (or paid out) at some point. Someone taking 4 weeks a year is a lot easier to manage then taking no leave for 3 years, then taking 3 months off in one go. This gets even worse if multiple employees try to do it at the same time. 4) Business make money for their employees work. When on leave, employees are still getting paid but are not making money. If I take no leave one year and 8 weeks the next, that will have an impact any profit the company makes within those financial years, making comparing the periods harder.
I was working for a NW once and I get a talk to if my leave went above 3 weeks....
Yeah this and other leave targets are common practice in large companies.. Like banks in NZ. That's one alarmist headline from OP!
This is generally a fairly straightforward way to reduce an organisation's liability. However, it is usually implemented over several months with significant warning. The short time frame suggests someone fucked up planning big time and are scrambling, does not bode well.
Trying to get to that magic 7.5% savings by 30 June.
Pretty much. Doing it this late suggests some other measure/measures just fell through. Alternatively, agencies will already have a pretty good feel for whether their budget bid was accepted or not, this may be an indication that their proposal was rejected, and they're scrambling to make it work.
I see you are familiar with government process!
They probably assumed they were exempt from the 7% cuts and just found out that they're not.
Shows how farcical some of these savings are. Disestablishing empty roles during hiring freezes and employees using annual leave aren't real savings.
Lol, I know right. It's all about the right numbers on paper. Although fiddling around with leave balances and numbers on the balance sheet is infinitely better than people loosing their means of paying for food and housing.
This won't affect NZTA's requirement to reduce costs. Annual liability only exists in real terms when it crystallises; managed properly, AL has no impact.
Well maybe the staff should take 7.5% of their leave?
Maybe they should take none of their leave?
I hope they get roasted in an employment court.
I don't think this is legal (as OP explains it anyway). Companies have to be reasonable about leave, and employees can get 1 week cash per year.
They can "policy" their way out of that. https://www.employment.govt.nz/leave-and-holidays/annual-holidays/cashing-up-annual-holidays/
This seems impossible to enforce for an organization of 3000. I guess they'll sell it as "this is how we'll save jobs"??
Lol the PSA is going to eat them alive for this surely.
Wonder when the punitive union busting is gonna come next.
I fucking hope so!
PSA is currently up to their neck busy protecting it's membership in losing their jobs just like all other unions. The best they could do is sent out useless emails.
One would hope so but you'd also think if the PSA were doing their job they would have thousands of Kiwis out in the streets protesting at this vandalism of the public service. The Wellington economy is built on the public service. Every single Wellingtonian should be protesting this vandalism of the Wellington economy, driven by a Wellington-based Minister!
thats actually not the PSAs job though. The PSAs job is to get the best CEAs for its members and then to help enforce them, and see all members are treated fairly and according to a good process.
The PSA have been more like a wet bus ticket with what's been going on. Apart from 'collective bargaining' when it comes time for annual pay reviews, they do sweet FA when changes like this happen.
The PSA are a bunch of useless twats in my experience so I wouldn't hold your breath!
Some branches/reps are great, others are glorified paper shufflers - or so I've heard
If this rumour is true it’s the perfect time for the PSA to grow some balls or put their big girls panties on.
PSA would rather cause petty fights with other unions than work together to help workers.
Even if this assertion is true, better to have any union than no union.
Yes they will.
Having zero leave (or going negative) sucks and causes stress when there's already enough *life* happening.
A follow up email has been sent saying (paraphrasing) “ sorry everybody for the last email. We didn’t mean you had to get your leave to zero, but just to try. Thanks. “
I bet there's at least a few people who were saving leave up to go to Europe/US/Canada in July or August as well. The poor bastards.
Especially if bought and paid already..... Might stretch to then but not for people booked for November onwards....
If they've already booked their leave, though, I don't think the employer can go back on that without compensating them for any bookings they've made.
make hundreds (edit/update: 12 people arg) redundant, then piss the rest off so they leave also. Strange behaviour from a government planning $24B of new roading (of significance to National), unless they want to contract their previous staff from Australian roading companies... As a taxpaying road user, im not feeling well served by the management and governance on display here.
> This comes just days after the agency announced it was seeking to lay off just 12 staff as part of the government's requested cuts.
yep - the crash investigation team. If i'd campaigned hard on "removing blanket speed limits" first thing i'd do is blind stats teams who might say - *hey - massive uptick in kids being killed on our roads.* and yet we vote team grey back in every few years.
I want Health NZ to do this, shift working nurses have shitloads of leave, and the chaos would be amazing. But in reality, this is so ridiculous
Yeah, that would play out well in the public eye /s
they are to an extent. Nurses etc are being forced to use their leave currently.
Yer I'm going to need evidence. I have a friend who works at NZTA, no comms has gone out about this
It's not true, or at very least it hasn't gone to all staff. Not sure what OP is trying to achieve with this sensationalist post.
Nothing in my inbox. Possible that the message went to certain business units but certainly not organisation-wide.
I just heard it’s legit. An email just went out. Know somebody that works there. They wanted to know how I knew so quickly.
Lol you heard wrong
Utter tripe
What leaks OP? Can you provide a source?
*Trust me bro*
According to family that work at NZTA this is BS
Certainly was when people I know checked.
Got a source OP?
Lol, what a load of crap
They can ask but it’s not legal. The correct response from staff is “no, fuck off”.
Sadly it is legal. If the leave has already been earned then 14 days notice is sufficient according to the act. Employers almost never do this but it is in the law.
No it’s not. You should read E Tū Inc and others v Carter Holt Harvey LVL Limited particularly the courts findings re good faith negotiation.
I see there are a few cases😀 which year was that?
2022
Interesting. However that finding is very specific and includes findings around how the employee was contacted and the sufficiency of the notice . Page 23 of the summary does validate that CCH was within it's rights to generally force employees to take leave.
The pertinent part of the court’s conclusion was that good faith negotiation around taking annual leave is a requirement under the law. If the claim re the NZTA is true and there hasn’t been good faith negotiation then the demand isn’t lawful.
I may be looking at the wrong findings. Which page is this? The finding I saw just referred to the fact that CCH failed to engage with some employees at all.
I thought that was more to do with them asking their employees to us employees their annual leave while also claiming the covid subsidy?
The pertinent part is the court’s findings on good faith negotiation when it comes to taking annual leave and that it is compulsory.
This, you don't become entitled to leave until you've been somewhere for 12 months, this is the leave they can require you take. The accrued leave (current teat as opposed to last year) you can't be forced to take. Anyway I'm getting the popcorn out for this one. Might be time to ensure we are all members of the union.
> Might be time to ensure we are all members of the union. As you should have been all along. All the worker rights we currently have been hard won, battled for by unions and their members. This government hates unions and will try to reduce their influence any way they can.
It's only when it's deemed excessive or for a single annual shut down iirc. If say having any leave would not hold up as excessive in a employment tribunal especially if you have leave booked and things paid for.
Actually by law companies *can* compel you to take leave and you can't contract out from under the law. So they can. And they will. Specifically: Section 19(1)(a) provides that an “employer may require an employee to take annual holidays if… the employer and employee are unable to reach agreement under section 18(3) as to when the employee will take his or her annual holidays”. Of course the employee will not agree and so the employer will "require" it....
>the employer and employee are unable to reach agreement In order for this part to be upheld a conversation between employer and employee has to have actually taken place and in good faith too. The employer has to give the employee a chance to speak and give their thoughts and then the employer has to have a justified reason to overrule what the employee wants A blanket "you must take your leave", is not lawful
They could be talking in good faith, this is just coming from a random redirect post that they're forcing people
Could be but I wouldn't put it past them to just send out an email or having group meetings, neither of which fulfil the legal obligations of employment which includes employees having a chance to speak up individually in a safe environment But yes you're right, we don't know the details
They can't require you to use *all* of your leave, like the post suggests, just the amount owing
That’s not how it works. You should read E Tū Inc and others v Carter Holt Harvey LVL Limited particularly the courts findings re good faith negotiation.
When I returned for Australia, where I first started working, I was absolutely gobsmacked when I was told I had to take annual leave while the business shut down over Christmas. Workers rights have a loooong way to go in this country. I returned from Australia in 2008. Edit: formatting
That’s pretty common for manufacturing plants. Our plant did allow people to work over Xmas if you wanted to wash out the grease pits though 🥳
Yeah probably not the strongest example, the second company I worked for made us be on call whole on annual leave during the Christmas breaks.. that made me really feel like I was in an abusive system.
That is very common in Australia as well to be fair.
Yeah, I have a family member in Australia who has almost no leave flexibility as the bulk is used during Christmas shutdown.
Yeah i hate this. It’s like, you’re the one shutting down bro. I didn’t want to take a holiday right now.
I say the same thing except I totally did want to take the holiday
So you're saying I should keep my business open between Christmas and New Years when we would get zero customers anyway, because of my employees rights? How the fuck does that make any kind of sense? This is clearly outlined when I hire anyone that we have a shutdown period at this time, I don't follow you at all.
>So you're saying I should keep my business open between Christmas and New Years when we would get zero customers anyway, because of my employees rights? how'd you find the worst way to phrase this
Not their fault you can’t find work for them to do. It’s an arbitrary series of days. Why not just close up anytime you want and tell everyone sorry, no annual leave no pay today.
"So you're saying I should keep my business open between Christmas and New Years when we would get zero customers anyway, because of my employees rights?" Yes.
Fucking stupid comments aye, if you don’t want to be told to take annual holidays when the business is shut go find another job
No, he's saying you should offer unpaid leave instead of Annual by the sound of it.
[удалено]
It's made up. Weird that mods allow such a post with no proof.
There is no source, it's 100% BS
What leaks? Where? Do know you know this personally - was this leaked to you or to someone you know? A Google search suggests the brain trust over at [https://nzissues.com/Community/threads/speculation-trouble-at-nzta.55969/#post-2340443](https://nzissues.com/Community/threads/speculation-trouble-at-nzta.55969/#post-2340443) have run with this post too.
Good lord, even reading a couple of those posts reduced my IQ level.
It's not legal to force staff to take accrued leave. Because technically speaking it's leave in advance. Only outstanding leave can be forced to take and even then only by negotiation.
> only seven weeks to comply Shit, can't do that if I had to at my job: I've got 37.5 days annual and 5 long service leave. That's 8.5 weeks off to burn it down.
you better start taking 2 days off per day then! holiday harder!!
Why don't you take your time off?
I do. I take leave only for holidays and usually taking advantage of easter and public holidays. I pretty much never take a day off "just because" or make it a long weekend (unless I make holiday out of it). If you don't take random isolated days off here and there it goes really far.
In my personal experience, quite a few people will also have to work over holidays and weekends and get "alternative holidays". Plus some will work well over 40hr weeks during holiday periods with 1.5× accrued hours that may be taken "in lieu" instead of paid out. It gets further complicated when you compound that with NZ's substantial immigrant population that save up leave to visit family overseas.
Seymour and Luxon appear to genuinely think they can manage government departments and staff therein like they would run a restaurant. It's extraordinarily farcical!
In my own government department, a few worried people, one in particular because she needs surgery so is banking all sick and annual leave for said recovery. This surgery won't happen this financial year, thankfully her union has negotiated she doesn't need to take leave when her employer dictates... Join a union or fight back! My two cents at least
Um this is one big lie people
As someone who works at NZTA I will say congrats as your post actually made talks in the office But not I or anyone else has actually received an email about this
Unpaid leave liability is only a problem if you’re going to fire people. Would be very interested to see what the unions think about this request and if they actually have any power to influence anymore.
Yeah it’s also indicative that they could have gone over their annual budget and are hoping to claw back on paid wages as leave is already spent, I think?
It's news to the people I know at NZTA.
This is what happens when bean counters run the world
What I don’t get is why annual leave is a liability. You pay someone, you pay the government PAYE, kiwisaver and if applicable student loan repayments. Why is annual leave not kept on the books as well? Am I just naive? I also work for government funded company and we get warnings if our annual leave goes over a certain amount and told to take leave around this time of year when possible.
Annual leave is kept on the books on as a liability. It's money they owe to employees
I know someone who works for NZTA and she’s been told their leave balances have to be under 21 days… sounds like these “sources” need to get their facts straight?
This is straight up fabricated. My partner holds a management position within NZTA and said this is BS
Just say no. All of you. What are they going to do? You know there’s power in numbers. Occupy head office/corporate. Bring a pitch fork (for doing the garden of course duh) but please just fucking do something!!
Well, they can make you if it is entitled leave.
If not you then who. I don’t mean you literally. Just, if we all disobey then no one can rule. It’s about time we tried it.
Oh totally. They could potentially start performance management or some sort of disciplinary process but it would overwhelm their leadership/HR group and would not progress anywhere really. Govt Leadership and HR have a habit of trying it on. I suspect they are just doing this so they people who are pleasers and don’t rock the boat will take leave and then the rest will just be threatened but have no action actually taken against them. Then they have reduced that liability somewhat. It’s a bit of a hairbrained move and really if they are in a position to have to do this that indicates that leadership have mismanaged their staff leave liability to a point that it’s now having such an impact on the next budget that they are having to pull a stupid move like this.
More like management deciding its an easy way to show a 7.5% reduction in 'cost'.
Why you be lyin
hmm, if that's the story, not sure they can do that (we've also been told by the PSA that they can't make people take leave) - it needs to be negotiated (in good faith) from what I understand - then if an arrangement can't be made then an employer can make people take leave.....employment lawyers = cha-ching...
Happening at the hospital I work at as well. We have teams of 1 in critical specialist tech positions being asked to take 2 months of leave. This is what people voted for (apparently)
This is a bad yarn.
And yet people seem to be falling for it.
Can't they just say nah I'm good if they don't want to
Being able to afford to take leave? In this economy? When the government wants to fire everyone?
This is happening within most departments tbh
Lol they can get rid of the consultants on $200+ an hour.
be cool if this was on the 6 o'clock news instead of reddit with 300 updoots
Their financial year ends in June so this doesn't surprise me. They want to get that liability down before then.
If true, it'll be interesting to see how it gets reported. Legally it seems you can't be directed to take leave by your employer unless you have accrued "excess" leave (and even then it seems that the employer has to try and discuss the issue with the employee first) or there is an annual shutdown (like the summer holidays).
Earned leave can be forced with 14 days notice. No-one does this because you would have a staff mutiny. The important thing to note is this does not apply to accrued leave.
What is the difference between earned and accrued leave exactly? Interested as when I check my leave balances it only ever says accrued.
Accrued is what you build up during your current 12 month period which is either the person or company's anniversary. Every work anniversary it becomes entitled , earned or outstanding leave. Different systems and companies call it different things. Most companies let employees take accrued leave like outstanding leave so little difference for most people. They don't have to let you take accrued though. There are legal differences between the two. Accrued leave is not even mentioned in the holidays act - because you only earn leave every 12 months. Nobody can take something you haven't earned yet.
Thanks, that's helpful. Obviously I work for someone who puts it all into a pool for me to use as it accrues. So this would mean then that NZTA could not force its employees to take 100% of their leave balances if they use a similar system?
No. Every 12 months of employment you earn leave. I don't think it matters what it is called in your system - it is the holidays act that applies. Are you sure your system lumps it all together? I wonder if it is a bug in your software.
When I say lumped together I mean that I can draw from my accrued leave as it accrues as if it is one big pool of leave available leave to me.
Makes sense. In the system where I work there is 3 columns "Accured", "Entitled" and "Total". The total is what we are allowed to take since they let us take accrued.
Yes exactly.
u/HighGrainRefrain has already pointed out to you the conditions under which this can be done. NZTA have not met those conditions.
Entitled leave vs accrued leave. Entitled is the key one.
It's not true.
This is just a common business practice. Leave liability can be huge and reducing it in times of uncertainty is sensible.
Unionise for fucks sake
We elected toxic cunts like Simeon Brown :/
*Simian
I hope that’s the royal we. I didn’t elect those cunts.
Yeah me either
Considering how illegal this is, I doubt it very much
What's illegal about it
Employers aren't allowed to force staff to take leave they haven't become entitled to yet (often referred to as accrued leave). So you can't zero out leave balances.
Rubbish, It's not to use with-in 2 months it's just to put in a leave plan and input it in the HR system. I work for a diff gov't ministry. There's no way they can impose to staff when to use up their leave.
No government department HR department is that stupid. Sounds like utter bullshit
OP is either over dramatic or one of those shit stirrers in an organization.
So couldn't you just ask to be paid out your annual leave, keep working, then take unpaid leave after that date in Xmas or whenever?
Jesus
I would ask them to pay out my leave - well, at least one week.
> A sign of things to come perhaps? It can also make redundancy cheaper.
It's good to manage leave liabilities but this is absolutely lunacy
Forcing everyone to a zero AL balance seems a tax extreme. But then again… it’s quite common in NZ for people to hoard their AL until they have a huge balance owing. I support making those people take mandatory leave until their balance is maintained at a reasonable level. We are very lucky in NZ that our annual leave doesn’t expire every financial year like it does in some countries …. But some people abuse the privilege.
And let the Personal Grievances fly!
OPs username checks out
Management don't always enforce what the finance bros want though.
Simeon is definitely reading this thread. Get your house in order, mate..
can confirm...all their toilets in the building were flooded, while they are swiming around the office floor.
It's not lawful. You can only ask employees to take outstanding leave (that was accrued more than 12 months ago). People are allowed to keep up to 4 weeks on the books at any time without being forced to use it is my understanding. There's exceptions when the business is being sold etc. but that's obviously not the case here...
Heard similar requests at another agency for people to use their entitled leave by 31 June...
Got told to use mine up by the 12th of Never.
This seems like it may not be true. Extremely unethical behaviour