Wellington, Feb 23 NZPA - Air Nelson today appealed a ruling that would prevent employers from roping in replacement workers during a strike.

It was the first hearing to take place in the new Supreme Court building in Wellington.

The appeal follows an Employment Court case in which the Engineering, Printing and Manufacturing Union (EPMU) alleged that Air Nelson, a subsidiary of Air New Zealand, had breached strikebreaking laws during industrial action in 2007.

The union said Air Nelson illegally used independent contractors and other employees to perform tasks usually done by the nearly 100 workers on strike.

The court ruled in Air Nelson's favour, but the EPMU successfully challenged that ruling in the Court of Appeal last year.

Today's appeal in the Supreme Court centred on several sections of the Employment Relations Act intended to prevent employers from using strikebreaking techniques, such as engaging contractors or new employees to pick up the slack during industrial action.

The Act gives non-striking workers the right to refuse tasks they are not routinely engaged in, and allows employers to compel them to undertake tasks they would routinely be engaged in.

Counsel for Air Nelson, Christopher Toogood QC, said the strikebreaking provisions did not apply in instances where striking and non-striking workers routinely carried out similar tasks.

Air Nelson's independent contractors had routinely been engaged in similar tasks to the striking workers, and were therefore not strikebreakers, he said.

Counsel for the EPMU, Rodney Harrison QC, said any interpretation of the Act should first take into account the tasks a worker would have been doing had he or she not been on strike.

Determining whether or not a non-striking worker had been routinely engaged in those same tasks should be a secondary consideration, he said.

The court reserved its decision.

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