AUT loses legal action on staff redundancies - but a sequel looms after ‘complex’ decision

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Auckland University of Technology (AUT) will have to withdraw redundancy notices to 80 staff after it broke the collective agreement.

But the university insists no aggravation or bad faith was intended, and says another hearing will have to happen soon to resolve the dispute.

The Employment Relations Authority (ERA) ruled in favour of staff after the union sued the university over proposed job cuts.

AUT planned to cut 170 academic staff in a bid to lower costs by $21 million or more, citing impacts Covid-19 had on central government funding and revenue from international students .

The university offered staff the opportunity to apply for voluntary severance, of which 90 accepted, leaving 80 positions to be disestablished.

Staff were told on December 1 about termination of their employment by severance from February 1, 2023.

But the Tertiary Education Union (TEU) said the university had not determined which positions it identified as “surplus”, nor called for voluntary severance of the employees potentially affected.

AUT’s director of employment relations Sean Williams said in deciding whether to apply or not for voluntary severance, it should have made no difference to employees if they knew their position could be potentially affected or not.

Are you affected by the AUT-staff dispute and redundancies? Email newsdesk@nzherald.co.nz

A clause of the collective agreement required staff found by AUT to be in selected positions to have the chance of applying for voluntary severance.

But the opportunity was offered before the selected positions had been identified, or before individual staff knew they had been selected, the ERA found.

In its ruling, the Authority said it was necessary and just that AUT should be asked to go back and follow the collective agreement correctly.

TEU’s Jill Jones said members were relieved at the decision.

“It’s been an arduous and distressing few months as we work our way through this, so it’s nice to have some good news for them a week out from Christmas,” Jones said.

“However, I must say it is sad that it’s taken a legal battle for AUT to do what we have been trying to tell them they had to do from the outset.

“We hope their leadership team will learn from this and engage with us fully and properly from the beginning in future.”

But AUT said it had a different view of the ERA’s findings, and was working to clarify and resolve issues emerging from the “legally complex” finding.

“AUT regrets a procedural issue highlighted in the findings is resulting in additional uncertainty for some staff,” the university added.

“Although the ERA has published its findings, it has not issued orders. AUT’s view of these findings differs from that of the TEU.”

AUT said given the differing views between parties, both sides will have to go to the ERA tomorrow for clarification.

“The ERA has said there are no matters of aggravation or bad faith in the way AUT has acted,” the university said.

AUT had formed a different view on interpretation of the collective agreement, at least in relation to some provisions relating to making organisational change.

“The ERA has noted that AUT should have identified the specific positions potentially declared surplus and, at this point, written to offer voluntary redundancy to the people in these specified positions.”

The university said once any matters of dispute or confusion were clarified, it would write to affected staff to confirm what would happen next.