Salaried staff working a part-time roster have their salaries pro-rated against full time salaries for that position, the Court of Appeal ruled; avoiding a Minimum Wage Act claim by union E Tu which could potentially see a salaried Mt Cook Airline cabin crew member on a twenty per cent load earning five times per hour that of a colleague working full time.
The employment law dispute centred on application of the 2021 Minimum Wage Order to Mt Cook’s 2019 Collective Agreement.
As with most airlines, Mt Cook’s cabin crew are predominately female. Since 2012, it has allowed salaried cabin crew to work part-time, a practice welcomed by staff as allowing flexible work options.
E Tu claimed wording of the 2021 Wage Order meant part-time salaried staff were entitled to a minimum of $1600 per fortnight, even where their salary pro-rated for the number of hours worked for a particular eighty-hour fortnight failed to reach this figure.
Mt Cook said this would result in ridiculous anomalies.
Requiring employers to pay a minimum fixed amount to salaried part-time employees regardless of how many hours they had actually worked per fortnight could distort the relativity between part-time and full-time employees, the Court of Appeal said. This would potentially discourage employers from offering part-time roles and could disadvantage employees seeking part-time work; students, employees looking to take on secondary employment, staff returning to the workforce, and those with childcare commitments. Payment for salaried part-time staff is to be calculated pro-rata to the appropriate full-time salary according to the number of hours worked, the court ruled. This is consistent with the statutory purpose of minimum wage legislation, it said.
Evidence was given that Mt Cook’s collective agreement allowed cabin crew to work a two-thirds roster: six rostered days per fortnight instead of nine.
Mount Cook Airline Ltd v. E Tu Inc – Court of Appeal (6.03.24)
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