Employer Followed Sound Restructuring Process - Dismissal Justified

Alan Winn was employed by Spotless Facility Services (NZ) Ltd as a boiler technician. Spotless had a contract with the Department of Corrections to look after the boilers and heating at three prisons in the Canterbury area. Alan’s role related to maintaining and repairing the boilers and associated equipment at the three prisons.

However, the contract was operating at a loss. Spotless had reviewed its six-monthly performance of the contract and concluded that it needed to reduce costs. Its further analysis of those overheads indicated that they were potentially spending too much money on a boiler technician role for the work that needed to be done. This was because the boilers and associated machinery had been upgraded in 2013 and therefore the large amount of preventative maintenance the boiler technician undertook was not necessary. It seemed the maintenance could be done in around 20 hours per month. Spotless came to this conclusion by reviewing job tickets and service records and by obtaining feedback from Alan regarding what his job entailed and what he did.

Spotless proposed a restructure whereby two plumbers currently on staff could undertake the preventative maintenance and if this could be done then Spotless could disestablish the boiler technician role.

Alan told Spotless that 20 hours’ preventative maintenance was not sufficient to maintain the boiler however Spotless did not accept that. The Authority Member said that this was within Spotless’s prerogative to do so and simply because Alan said something contrary to it and disagreed with what Spotless accepted does not make that decision by Spotless wrong, nor does it mean it did not consider what he had said appropriately.

Employment Relations Authority Member Peter van Keulen was satisfied that Spotless conducted a comprehensive review. Alan was given sufficient information about the proposed restructure so that he could provide feedback on it. He was also given adequate opportunities to give that feedback which he took.

Once the decision was made to disestablish the boiler technician role, Spotless actively considered redeployment opportunities. Unfortunately, there were none.

Alan believed that Spotless had predetermined the result of the consultation and was dismissive or disinterested in anything he said. Authority Member van Keulen said in his determination that he could not conclude that Alan’s impression was in fact what the Spotless participants were thinking or doing in the meetings. Mr van Keulen said that Alan’s impression was unfortunate but he did not believe it influenced the opportunity Spotless was affording Alan to engage in consultation.

The Authority Member found that Spotless had followed a fair process throughout the consultation in relation to the proposed restructure; the redundancy was genuine and there was no unjustified dismissal.