Affco and the Meat Workers Union took their battle over unlawful lockouts during negotiations to the Supreme Court today, the latest stage in the long-running dispute.
The case is the first judicial test of amendments to the Employment Relations Act introduced in March 2015, which allowed firms to opt out of multi-employer agreements and removed the duty under good faith bargaining for both sides to reach an agreement.
Affco was the first company to apply for an end to bargaining under the legislative changes and has mounted continuous but as-yet unsuccessful legal challenges to an Employment Court ruling in favour of the Meat Workers Union. Its application for judicial review of the Employment Court decision earlier this year was thrown out by the Court of Appeal, with the bench describing it as "an abuse of process" for running it in tandem with the more substantial issue, dealt with in today's Supreme Court hearing.
The case dates back to the opening of the 2015/16 killing season when Affco invited the previous season's workers to attend presentations for new individual employment contracts that differed from their old collective agreement. While that agreement had expired, the union had begun bargaining for a new collective agreement.
The Employment Court ruled that Affco unlawfully locked out meat workers when collective bargaining talks were still underway, and breached the act by not acting in good faith while negotiating a new collective agreement. That decision was significant in finding that seasonal workers were engaged by Affco on employment agreements of indefinite duration rather than ending when the season ended.