Less than two weeks before Christmas and that good old Christmas redundancy feeling is upon us. You have to wonder whether the timing’s deliberate, or just insensitive, but the Christmas redundancies are mounting up :
- Taxrefunds in Oamaru are planning to make 67 staff redundant at its call centre.
- Twenty-eight jobs at Yarrows bakery in the Taranaki will be gone by Christmas.
- Longveld Engineering is laying off up to 17 workers, depite being named both Waikato Business of the Year and Manufacturing Business of the Year.
- The final 80 workers will be out of a job at Lane Walker Rudkin by Christmas.
- Up to 50 union members and other call centre staff at Colmar Brunton will be made redundant with no redundancy compensation.
- Staff at Waikato Rugby Union headquarters have taken 10-15 per cent pay cuts to avoid Christmas redundancies.
These are the ones in the media this week, but there’s more we don’t hear about. 53% of employers in a recent EMA survey reported they used redundancy as a cost cutting measure in the past year.
Then there’s the redundancies my friend told me about at the weekend, where three of his workmates were told they had no job after Christmas and by the way, there would be no redundancy pay either.
But don’t give up. My Redundancy Protection Bill campaign is still alive and kicking. I’ve postponed the bill until March to allow for more campaigning time. More unions and groups are joining in, and the petition and postcards will be out at public events over the summer.
PS: This is my Christmas card to you all.
Beat ya Rich.
It’s awful that these people are getting laid off before Christmas. 
Merry Christmas Darien.
“and by the way, there would be no redundancy pay either”
Thats a shame, why didn’t they negotiate this into their contract when they took on the job?
We have ACC, so why not a state provided income protection scheme opposed to forcing employers to include redundancy provisions in employment contracts? Perhaps employees should pay as a premium as they do for ACC.
Introducing the compulsory redundancy provisions will have a very negative effect on the very fragile recovery that National have been able to produce. Quite simply employers will not employ staff if economically it is not affordable. Placing extra costs onto the employer will mean that they will make those cuts before any such bill could pass (This will not get past first reading despite the unions best efforts).
I feel very sorry for those being made redundant at this time – I was made redundant in early September and it is not a pleasant thing – but I do not want my chances of finding full time employment hampered by employers holding back because of onerous redundancy provisions in a contract.
Funny how despite nine years Labour when they had the opportunity never brought in compulsory redundancy provisions – nine years is a long time – why not when you had the chance with full employment? – the time would never have been better.
@indiana – “why didn’t they negotiate it into their contract……” actually, for many workers, that is the last thing on their mind when they take on a job. Union members are likely to have it in their agreements, but workers who are on individual contracts are extremely unlikely.
@monty – sorry you were made redundant – and the provisions of the bill are far from “onerous”. They are fair. Labour set up the advisory committee on restructuring and redundancy which made recommendations last year, which have been ignored by this government. Labour would have brought in minimum redundancy standards this term, but there was no demand for it previously because workers weren’t losing their jobs in droves as they are now. And we were busy fixing up all the other messes caused for workers by National – there was a lot to do!
Darien – Of course you and I will never agree as we come from opposites of the political spectrum. I lost my job and that is a reality of life. I certainly have not sat around moaning – but rather got on and earned money by contracting and I accept that my destiny is my responsibility – not my previous employers. I suspect that setting up an advisory committee in 2008 (election year which Labour was always going to lose was a hollow action. I also do not accept your arguement about no demand – surely the best time to introduce such measures is when there is full employment and people are not being made redundant (ie good economic times). The worst time from the economy’s perspective for such legislation is when such measures are not affordable and employers are struggling to pay the bills let alone be encumbered with additional costs.
You still fail to address the key issue of the impact on how such a measure would impact on the economic recovery when your are putting up a hurdle to future employment prospects because of additional costs? And that is the reason why Helen and Michael would never have allowed this to progress under their watch.