Business NZ has greeted decision by the Supreme Court that during strikes employers can use replacement workers. The court yesterday had ruled in the support of Air Nelson in its dispute with EPMU, which claimed the Air New Zealand subsidiary had violated strikebreaking laws during industrial action in 2007.

The employment court case had been followed by the appeal, in which the union said Air Nelson unlawfully used independent contractors and other employees to carry out tasks usually done by the nearly 100 workers on strike. The Employment Court was found for Air Nelson, but the result was overturned by the Court of Appeal.

The Supreme Court said viewing the work as a strict definition of exact tasks would be forbidden for employers and would tilt the balance too much in favor of unions. On the contrary, Business NZ chief executive Phil O'Reilly said, "requiring prohibitive definitions of tasks in workplaces would simply make New Zealand businesses uncompetitive and he welcomed the Supreme Court's commonsense ruling".

In its judgment yesterday, the Supreme Court said the approach taken on by the Employment Court is that the contract engineers had not been performing the task of striking employees but they were doing their own work.