She found out in front of 50 colleagues that her name had been quietly removed
A consultant physician at Middlemore Hospital has won three personal grievances against Health New Zealand after the employer unilaterally cut her agreed pay - then ignored her complaints about it.
The Employment Relations Authority issued its determination on October 16, 2026, finding Health New Zealand Te Whatu Ora (HNZ) breached its obligations under the Senior Medical and Dental Officers collective agreement by reducing the physician's workbook without mutual agreement, failing to properly engage with her formal workplace complaints, and subjecting her to disparate treatment when she volunteered for additional duties.
The Authority ordered HNZ to pay $25,000 in compensation for humiliation, loss of dignity and injury to feelings, plus wage arrears of approximately $100,118 with interest.
How the workbook works
The case turned on something called a workbook - a tool used in Middlemore's general medicine department to map out each senior medical officer's duties and corresponding pay. The physician described it as a wall of bricks, each brick representing a duty with a value attached. The total value determines the doctor's salary.
Under the collective agreement, a physician's hours of work and job size must be "mutually agreed" and must objectively reflect the requirements of the service. Compiling and revising a workbook had historically been a collaborative process between the doctor, head of department and service managers.
The DPE appointment and the workbook dispute
The physician had worked at Middlemore since 2020. In early February 2024, she was appointed director of physician education (DPE) for the Royal Australasian College of Physicians - a role she understood was assessed at 0.2 of a full-time equivalent and paid accordingly.
She met with the previous head of department to update her workbook. A follow-up meeting never happened. When a newly appointed clinical director took over, a meeting in April 2024 left her with unresolved concerns about FTE funding for the DPE role. A further meeting in July with the clinical director and a general manager was not successful.
In August 2024, the clinical director emailed a draft workbook setting her job size at 51.5 hours per week, or 1.3 FTE. The parties agreed to add 0.2 FTE for the DPE role. But two issues remained: her personal non-clinical time had been cut from 10 to 5 hours, and the DPE role sat within non-clinical time rather than being treated as a separate leadership responsibility.
By October 2024, a workbook was signed off by a general manager and a senior colleague acting as delegate while the clinical director was on leave. The physician received backpay to February 1, 2024.
That should have been the end of it.
The pay cut
In February 2025, the clinical director and general manager wrote to the physician requesting a work diary and estimates of her actual hours. Her union representative responded in April with a completed diary showing core hours of 43.25 per week and a proposed job size of 56.5 hours.
HNZ did not respond to the union.
Instead, it wrote directly to the physician, stated she had not engaged in good faith, said she was working approximately 43 hours per week, and flagged an intention to seek repayment of backpay to February 1, 2024. A revised workbook was attached.
On April 25, 2025, HNZ implemented the new workbook. The physician's pay dropped by approximately $2,000 per fortnight. She described the revised workbook as "significantly different" to earlier versions - reduced salary, same responsibilities, no consistent or transparent method behind the changes.
What the Authority found
The Authority had "no hesitation" in finding the October 2024 workbook was agreed and binding. The managers who approved it were experienced, knowledgeable about service requirements and physician duties, and - in the general manager's case - had been present at earlier meetings about the dispute. Any internal approval process HNZ relied on was unknown to the physician and could not reasonably have been known to her.
HNZ argued the collective agreement gave it an independent right to correct the workbook based on objective service requirements, without needing the physician's consent.
The Authority rejected that reading. The agreement required mutual agreement on hours of work and job size. The objective-requirements part of the clause informed that obligation - it did not override it. Reaching agreement required genuine engagement, particularly where the parties disagreed.
Even accepting HNZ's interpretation, the Authority found it faced a "significant evidential hurdle." Two experienced managers had already assessed and approved the October workbook. It was unclear what was wrong with their assessment, or what had changed, particularly given the physician's unchallenged evidence that she continued working in line with the October workbook.
Complaints ignored, extra duties blocked
The second grievance concerned the physician's formal complaint in December 2024, when she wrote to management stating she had "lost feeling of safety" in the department and asked for the clinical director to be removed from her reporting line. Management proposed a meeting. The physician agreed and offered written evidence and a list of witnesses.
The meeting was never set up. HNZ never investigated.
The Authority found this was not dealt with appropriately. While the general manager may not have been able to handle the complaint given her own involvement in the dispute, HNZ had sufficient human resource support available to find an appropriate path. It did not.
The third grievance arose from how the physician was treated when she volunteered for additional duties. In late 2024, she attended a handover meeting and discovered - in front of 50 other doctors - that her name had been removed from the extra duties list without her knowledge. She was later told this was due to concerns about excessive hours and health and safety risks. Those concerns had not been raised with her directly.
In December 2025, when she again volunteered for additional duties - including on Christmas Eve - a manager emailed asking whether the work would be "manageable and safe." That manager later apologised for the request. The next day, a ward telephonist told her she had been removed from the roster again.
The Authority found the approach was not fair or reasonable. Even accepting a general directive about workload and wellbeing was in place, HNZ could have anticipated the physician would view the scrutiny in the context of the ongoing pay dispute. The evidence was not compelling that other senior medical officers faced the same level of questioning about their hours.
No deduction for standing her ground
HNZ argued the physician's own conduct contributed to the situation. The Authority disagreed: asserting contractual rights could not properly be considered blameworthy. There were no deductions from the remedies.
The orders
The Authority awarded $25,000 in compensation. The physician's evidence of harm was described as "compelling" - she felt watched, analysed, judged, and isolated within her department. She took annual leave partly due to the stress.
On arrears, the Authority found the physician was entitled to be paid under the terms of the October workbook because that was her agreed pay. HNZ was ordered to pay the arrears within 21 days, with interest calculated from April 23, 2025. If the parties could not agree the final sum, leave was granted to return to the Authority.
For HR teams managing senior professionals under collective agreements, the determination is a sharp illustration that once a pay arrangement is signed off by managers with authority, it cannot be walked back without genuine mutual engagement. Bypassing the employee and their union to impose a correction is the kind of unilateral action that turns a pay dispute into a six-figure liability.
