Yesterday, I sought leave to table in parliament a postcard addressed to John Key which says:
Dear Mr Key
I am writing to urge you and your party to support Darien Fenton’s Redundancy Protection Bill by voting it past its first reading in the House.
This bill is about protecting workers and their families through the hard economic times we are currently facing by tiding them over financially between jobs.
Most other countries in the OECD have some kind of redundancy protection for their workers, as do most unionised Kiwi workers.
But there are still hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders who have no such protection and who are extremely vulnerable to the effects of the recession because of this.
Your government has said a lot about its commitment to working New Zealanders and their families during the recession and I now ask you and your party to show this commitment by voting to provide redundancy protection to all working New Zealanders.
The National Party denied leave for the postcard to be tabled.
But never mind, because there’s 100,000 of them on the way to John Key, so one way or another, the message will get through to him.
Postscript: While I was writing this, I had a phone call about workers being laid off in Christchurch in a call centre. No redundancy pay, just here’s four weeks notice and you can leave now. Hurt and angry workers.
Just a question – if it was a postcard addressed to John Key – how did you get it? Was it not delivered to him?
I’ve always wondered about that, does anyone have to give a reason as to why they objeict to some being tabled?
the reason an employer makes staff redundant is that they can’t afford to keep them on… so if you force them to pay redundancy out on top of the four weeks etc, won’t that drive more cost and put the business at further risk and therefore put the jobs of anyone still employed at the business in jeopardy? While in theory your bill seems like a good idea, I fear you could actually inadvertently cost more NZers their jobs by driving up costs for struggling businesses.
So the best solution to keep the employer afloat would be a state guarantee – but then we already have welfare support.
Darien.. stealing mail again are we?
Funnily enough I had a brush with redundancy recently. Thankfully I was not one of the two that left. Those who were made redundant got the same thing 4 weeks notice and you don’t have to show up to work for that 4 weeks.
To be honest that seems pretty damn fair. The company had to pay 2 people 4 weeks of wages that they get 0 productivity for and those same 2 workers get a month payed to search for more work.
I really am having trouble seeing what is unfair in that.
See the righties are wound up. Good on you Darien, this is urgently needed.
no Tom, not wound up – just curious how mail addressed to someone could end up in the hands of someone else.
I’m wondering if the mail was ever delivered to Mr Key, or was it intercepted?
Its a obvious and fair question.
Well Bikerkiwi, you will see that Darien noted it was addressed to John Key, not received by John Key, that should indicate whether it was intercepted or not, “Its a [sic] obvious and fair..” answer.
My God, you really are being that thick. Of course Darien knows what the postcard said – she’s the one who got them printed.
It’s called a postcard campaign, genius. Now you should apologise to her for accusing her of mail-tampering.
http://hardtimes.org.nz/take-action/
Bikerkiwi, you can do better then this, surely? It is clearly a pre-printed pre-addressed card handed out to people who can put their name on the bottom and drop it in the post, if they choose. Hardly a novel political tactic, and hardly intercepting mail. It only becomes mail when it’s posted. After the Hollow Men, you Tories see conspiracies everywhere.
Seriously – I didnt know – I simply asked the question – it was not clear from either the original post, nor the link (its not on the front page where it was linked to).
I was under the impression that it was simply a actual postcard.
and as for Tom’s comment ” Now you should apologise to her for accusing her of mail-tampering.” Sure – just point me to where I actually accused her of doing that – genius.
Yeah, I have to say that I too thought it was a single postcard. I hope Darien’s postcards make come kind of impression.
Thanks for the clarifications from those who observed that this was a postcard the Fair Deal in Hard Times campaign has printed. I was trying to deliver one to Mr Key through the parliamentary process.
@Cal – no reasons have to be given.
@Geek – because you weren’t one of the two that left, you didn’t experience the awful feelings of anger and unfairness of being told that the job you had been doing to the best of your ability was gone, and so you can leave immediately.
Awesome that you totally ignore any questioning the substance of your bill
Employers don’t only make people redundant because they don’t have money, the guys at Transfield and Downers are being laid off because Telecom wants to change contractors. Many employers have positive cashflows and financial reserves but make a long term decision that they want to downsize. There are all kinds of reasons.
But yes, there is a cost in paying redundancies, just as there is a ‘cost’ to businesses in every employment right. Businesses can save for contingent liabilities like redundancies, and in fact this liability has been demonstrated by studies to encourage employers to hold on to their staff and actually reduce unemployment.
Nearly every other OECD country recognises minimum redundancy protections as a basic right. If they can do it so can we.