Employment Protection in New Zealand: 49 Years of Personal Grievance Law

The 50th anniversary of the enactment of unfair dismissal law in the United Kingdom precedes that of New Zealand’s by only a few months. As was the case in the United Kingdom, New Zealand introduced unfair dismissal legislation, generally referred to in New Zealand as ‘personal grievance’ protections, as part of a general reform of its industrial law in 1973 in the Industrial Relations Act (‘1973 Act’). This Act initiated two decades of legal reforms that moved New Zealand’s labour law away from the century-long, collectively-centred, industrial conciliation and arbitration system to a system that became increasingly individualised, juridified and rooted in the classical common law rules governing of the contract of employment. While the debates leading up to 1973 reform commenced shortly after the ILO’s adoption of Recommendation 119, it seems that concerns with employment security had little to do with the introduction of the personal grievance provisions. The key concern, as reflected in the Parliamentary debates, was the level of industrial action associated with disputes over disciplinary action taken by employers This concern was reflected in the wide definition of a ‘personal grievance’which extended beyond dismissals to encompass a wide range of other disadvantageous actions taken by employers. A ‘personal grievance’ was defined in the 1973 Act as: