Council’s new ‘house rules’ draw fire

Press, 2 September 1981, Page 2

Council’s new ‘house rules’ draw fire

Union criticism of new “house rules” adopted by the Rangiora Borough Council for its staff of 40 has been dismissed as “nonsense” by the training officer of the Canterbury Employers’ Association, Mr G. Meikle. The Labourers’ Union and the Canterbury Carpenters’ Union have criticised the house rules, adopted recently by the council, and have advised their members to disregard the document. However, Mr Meikle, who has organised seminars for Canterbury employers and advised many of them to adopt such written rules, said that it was not new to have them and that a worker still had the right to go the Arbitration Court ultimately if he was dismissed.

The Town Clerk of Rangiora. Mr A. F. Rapley, said that he had attended an association’s seminar and as a result had recommended that house rules be written. He said he had been advised that if a dismissal case went to a disputes committee or to arbitration the council might experience difficulties if it did not have written house which rules had been explained to the staff. Mr Rapley said there had been no industrial disputes

recently with the staff. Two other union secretaries had not objected to the. rules, he said.

Mr W. B. Brown, secretary of the Southern branch of the Labourers’ Union, said that some of the rules were “obnoxious” and that they tended to undermine or negate the award. He said his advice to prospective employees of the council would be either not to sign the rules or to see the union first.

“We would have no objection to the council’s setting out a schedule of information as such, but we cannot accept a person signing away his rights,” said Mr Brown.

Mr Meikle said that the unions would be the first to complain if they got into a personal grievance situation and the employer did not have a written rule. “If their members are dismissed they have every right to follow the personal grievance procedures,” he said.

Employers accepted that the final arbiter in cases of dismissal was the Arbitration Court. The court would not uphold any cule which undermined an award or was unreasonable, Mr Meikle said.