The Employment Court has rejected an appeal by TVNZ and ordered the broadcaster to comply with a clause related to staff participation in changes to workplace practices.  

The decision comes after a two-day hearing this week in which TVNZ appealed an earlier Employment Relations Authority (ERA) ruling that found it in breach of the company’s collective agreement.  

As a result of the earlier ERA decision, TVNZ has had to retain 17 staff while the Employment Court heard the case as a matter of urgency.  

The case centred around TVNZ’s compliance with clause 10.1.1 of the collective agreement, which the ERA found it had breached.  

That clause states TVNZ will support the active participation of staff in the development of the organisation and changes in workplace practices.  

“TVNZ acknowledges that change is an evolutionary process and employees will be involved throughout. The aim of this participation will be to discuss all relevant information openly and honestly and to reach agreement and to make recommendations to management,” the clause said.  

Paul Wicks KC, representing TVNZ, submitted the clause had not been breached.  

This is because he said TVNZ had supported the active participation of staff in workplace change through its 2023 Te Paerangi programme and subsequently when it became clear that television shows such as Fair Go and Sunday needed to end.  

The Te Paerangi programme was a form of staff consultation to discuss falling revenue and the need to cut costs.  

While TVNZ argued the programme helped meet its obligations of consulting staff, the union said Te Paerangi was a general programme and there had been no specific proposal to staff to cut costs.  

During the second day of the hearing, former acting chief executive and current chief operating officer Brent McAnulty said senior leaders knew before Christmas the broadcaster needed to reduce employee costs by $10 million but held off telling staff as it would have had a “catastrophic” impact.

As well as creating concern for staff, he said raising the figure last year would have impacted market confidence.  

McAnulty told the court the broadcaster waited to progress any proposals until TVNZ received its second quarter financial results.  

“We all hoped our revenue position would change for the better.”  

This did not eventuate and he said the downturn, which began in February 2023, had worsened by the end of the year.  

Simon Mitchell KC, for E tū, argued there had been a “total failure” on the part of TVNZ to comply with 10.1.1.  

Mitchell questioned whether it was fair to state that McAnulty’s position was that decisions regarding how the $10 million would be saved were for leadership at TVNZ.  

“It’s what we’re paid to do,” he replied.  

To this, Mitchell asked whether he saw any incongruity with the 10.1.1 clause and McAnulty said he did not believe there was.  

Mitchell asked McAnulty if the Te Paerangi programme discussed specific redundancies and he said ‘no’.  

The lawyer then referred to TVNZ Sunday senior producing director Del Byast’s testimony on Tuesday where he outlined how he was not involved in Te Paerangi but would have been had he known his role was on the line.  

Byast broke down in tears as he revealed he and his family came close to buying their first home, shortly before the state broadcaster cancelled the current affairs show.  

“I was so confident about Sunday’s place in the newsroom that last year my partner and I were making multiple offers to buy our first home,” he said.  

Earlier in the hearing TVNZ’s news and current affairs executive editor Phil O’Sullivan was asked by Mitchell about a comment he was reported to have made at a Sunday team meeting in February 2024, when staff asked what they needed to do in light of the financial challenges.  

“Nothing. Keep doing what you are doing,” O’Sullivan is reported to have said.  

O’Sullivan told the court that it sounded like something he would say, placing it in the context that a final decision on whether to propose closing Sunday had not been made.  

He said it would have been “brutal” to have raised that prospect at that staff meeting and he “hoped against hope” that the show might still be saved.  

A month later, the formal proposal was presented to staff.  

Katie Harris is an Auckland-based journalist who covers social issues, media, crime and justice. She joined the Herald in 2020.