Employment law New Zealand

[walshy]

Morning,

Bit of advice needed, my wife has been offered a job in Tauranga as a recruitment consultant which is great news, should get us in and we are doing the eoi this weekend.

However few things in the contract which slightly concern us,

No holiday pay for 1st year

Only 3 days pay for family bereavement

The owner will shut down for 2 weeks at some point in the year and will give 14 days notice so you must take 2 weeks holiday then.

No redundancy pay

Is this all standard practice in New Zealand?

[cappuccino]

Yup and don't forget to add no sick pay for first 6 months and then only 5 days per year.

[walshy]

Yup and don't forget to add no sick pay for first 6 months and then only 5 days per year.

wow really, this is standard across the board for anyone?

[IanW99]

wow really, this is standard across the board for anyone?

I wouldn't say that this was standard but it's certainly pretty common.

Certainly we aren't forced to take the same two week holiday as everyone else (would be difficult as the OH is a nurse).

The holiday pay isn't generally as bad as it sounds, normally you have to accrue holiday days before you can take them, so once you have accrued enough days to allow you to take some time off then it is allowed. Of course in your case you would need to have accrued the 10 days needed to take the annual 2 week holiday.

It is also possible to take time off without pay, which doesn't seem to be a problem if you need to, and also domestic sick leave is provided so that you can have time off to look after other members of the family.

Ian

[Nick88]

Most bosses are pretty good about letting you take the days during the first year as you accrue them. Unless, of course they are one of those businesses that shut down completely as and when the boss says so. Christmas and New Year is the most common time for this to happen, and then it can be difficult to find anywhere to go cos it is all booked up (accommodation wise, anyway).

[mgbridges]

Does seem rather harsh that you don't get any holiday pay for your first year. I could understand them only giving you a set number of pro-rata days depending on when the company's holiday year falls but without pay seems a bit off.

'Having' to take holiday when the company dictates does happen quite a bit. My OH's company shut down over Christmas and he has to use some of his annual leave during this period. Its a bummer as they don't seem to decide until quite late in the year when these days will be so working out how many days leave he has left is a bit tricky.

On the plus side when both me and our DS we sick he was able to take paid sick leave to look after us both. He has also been able to work up extra hours from time to time to take the odd half day hols e.g. our son's Fabulous Dads Day Out at his school. There does seem to be a bit more understanding and flexibility in terms of family commitments overall.

HTH
Anneliese