Employment Law

Chen Palmer is now able to offer its clients specialist employment law advice with the introduction of a new employment law team.  Chen Palmer can assist clients with both contentious and transactional employment law issues, and has substantial experience in ensuring their clients are supported and assisted in complying with, and applying, New Zealand's employment laws.

The team

The Employment Law Team is led by Susan Hornsby-Geluk, Partner, and includes:

To discuss how the Employment Law Team may be of assistance to you or your organisation, please contact a member of the team.

Our expertise

Employment law is something most people come into contact with every day of their lives.  However, it is constantly evolving and with its strong emphasis on process and good faith, compliance can be a challenge.  Chen Palmer views itself as a business partner, ensuring its clients always have access to effective and efficient employment law advice which meets business needs.  The firm specialises in all aspects of employment law including:

  • Personal grievances and litigation including all levels of dispute resolution from mediation through to the Employment Relations Authority and the Courts.  Chen Palmer has experience in all aspects of employment litigation, and will work to ensure that its clients get the best results and are kept informed of the progress and process every step of the way.
  • Disciplinary investigations and processes - Chen Palmer can assist clients to navigate these tricky processes, to ensure that a dismissal or other disciplinary action will not be overturned as a result of the process being inappropriate.  Chen Palmer also assists its clients in understanding what conduct justifies dismissal.
  • Collective bargaining - Chen Palmer's employment law practice is able to assist its clients in every step of the collective bargaining process, including assisting with bargaining process agreements, taking the role of lead advocate at the bargaining table, and advising on strikes and lockouts.
  • Restructuring - Chen Palmer can take its clients through the restructuring process, assisting employers to design and implement appropriate restructuring processes and proposals which comply with the good faith obligations.
  • Agreements including drafting, reviewing and advising on the interpretation of individual employment agreements, collective employment agreements, casual employment agreements, fixed term employment agreements, and independent contractor agreements.
  • Legislative obligations - in addition to the Employment Relations Act 2000, Chen Palmer can advise on many other pieces of legislation that affect the employment relationship, including:  Kiwisaver Act 2006, Holidays Act 2003, Wages Protection Act 1983, Parental Leave and Employment Protection Act 1987, Human Rights Act 1993, Health and Safety in Employment Act 1992 etc.
  • Training - Chen Palmer can work with clients to develop specialist training programmes to ensure that line managers and the HR team have the right level of knowledge and expertise to manage employment relations in-house.
  • Governance - Chen Palmer can provide organisations with advice on their governance structure and arrangements at both a strategic and a practical level.  In particular, we specialise in assisting both boards and senior managers in resolving relationship breakdowns and achieving successful outcomes.
  • Sports law - Chen Palmer has experience in sports law and can assist you in negotiating and drafting player contracts and funding and sponsorship agreements.  We also deal with employment and contractor issues for sporting organisations which engage staff, and with drafting the constitutions and rules which govern those bodies.  We also represent clients in relation to disciplinary matters arising out of sporting events and alleged rule breaches.

Previous work

Chen Palmer's employment law team has acted in a number of significant employment law cases including:

  • Acting for Housing New Zealand Corporation in a successful claim against the PSA that they had breached good faith and the bargaining process agreement between the parties during collective bargaining.
  • Acting for an employee of Air New Zealand in a successful stress claim against Air New Zealand.
  • Successfully defending a claim brought against Inland Revenue by the PSA regarding Inland Revenue's right to unilaterally create new positions within its organisation and determine the salary band relevant to that position. The case represented a significant victory for the rights of Inland Revenue to determine what positions it created and the salary level appropriate for those positions.
  • Acting for a senior advertising executive who was unjustifiably dismissed by Ogilvy New Zealand.
  • Acting in the leading case on communications bargaining - Christchurch City Council v SLGOU. The case affirmed the right of employers to communicate with employees during collective bargaining.

Other previous work includes:

  • Advising on, and taking the role of lead advocate in, the bargaining for a number of large organisations including tertiary institutions and large public sector organisations.
  • Assisting the exit of senior executives, and negotiating exit arrangements.
  • Advising a large public sector organisation on the implications of KiwiSaver, taking into account that organisation's own complex superannuation scheme environment.
  • Advising on complex holiday pay calculations for an organisation with a significant number of wage types, allowances, reimbursements, and rotating shifts.
  • Advising on significant restructures, including designing the restructure process, assisting with identifying which roles are disestablished, and which are not, and advising on redeployment obligations.
  • Advising on high-profile disciplinary processes, and has assisted in managing the competing interests which surround these processes, including internal politics and media interest.

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