As expected, the NActs voted the Redundancy Protection Bill down yesterday. It was an ugly spectacle listening to the likes of National MP David Bennett, who claimed that the bill was to make everyone union members! Is that the best he could do?
Yes, the bill was defeated, but that’s only part of the campaign to push for minimum redundancy notice and pay for workers who have no protection in their employment agreements. There’s still a parliamentary petition circulating, which will come back to the House in due course.
Labour’s committed to this and the campaign will continue right through to election year, because this is an issue of basic fairness.
It was an ugly spectacle listening to the likes of National MP David Bennett, who claimed that the bill was to make everyone union members! Is that the best he could do?
Yes. Given his about face on his public comments in Hamilton Hamilton, that would be about as good as he could do. He doesn’t seeem to be up to much. That would be about as good as he could do.
Wow, not sure how that comment ended up like that.
Sorry to everyone. I hang my head in shame.
It’s okay Sean, your comment is not nearly as incomprehensible as the NACTs arguments again this Bill!
Just a question – after all the years you had in government – why was it not made law then?
And with contracts there is no requirement for people not to have it – its simply part of the negotiating process?
A good sensible decision. This was silly bill and what I would expect from a party which has no understanding of macro economics. Redundancy costs placed on employers during these fragile economic times would have a devasting effect on reduction of unemployment.
Great to see the unemployment has dropped today to about 6%. Proof that National policies are working and are reducing unemployment – don’t all you lefties agree?
@Chris – that question gets a bit tiresome to be honest. Labour did heaps for workers rights during 9 years, including redundancy – ie making redundancy payments a priority in insolvency situations, reducing the tax on compensation, protecting vulnerable workers in situations of contracting out and setting up the Advisory Group that recommended NZ should match other countries in minimum redundancy notice and compensation. Surely you don’t think that Labour should never come up with a new idea again because it didn’t do it in nine years of government? Yes, it’s negotiable – and that’s why 80% of New Zealanders have no redundancy entitlements.
@Monty – that’s a pretty ignorant comment. Are you saying Aussies don’t understand “macro economics” because they have redundancy notice and payments in law? And yes, it’s great unemployment has gone down, but so have wages!
“As expected, the NActs voted the Redundancy Protection Bill down yesterday.”
Pushing my luck now, gotta run
…
“Surely you don’t think that Labour should never come up with a new idea again because it didn’t do it in nine years of government?”
Very well put. People could argue about the priorities of the previous government, but to dismiss every new idea with the annoying “oh but you had ages” is a bit silly, and generally seems to come from those diametrically opposed to Labour in the first place.
Darien what were the details in your Bill pertaining to the amount of Redundancy you were asking employers to pay?
On the face of it what your Bill and what many NZ workers are asking is entirely fair however, if the company is struggling and needs to make redundancies, 4 weeks notice is achievable, but if money is tight then redundancy payment may be asking the impossible.
In this situation we have to balance the right of workers to have a little insulation (including easy access to the UB – thank you Labour, that was a good move) with the need to ensure that businesses are not completely crippled forcing them to go into receivership or bankruptcy because of redundancy payments.
I am not sure how this fits into the whole macro economics debate as I have a degree in political science and history, not economics!
People have to believe that Labour is renewed, not that it simply owns renewed rhetoric.
Loota – perhaps not! The poll on Stuff.co.nz shows that most like the “policy overhaul” Labour has expressed.
@Rebecca : 4 weeks notice, 4 weeks pay for the first year of continuous service and 2 weeks for each year after that up to a maximum of 26 weeks. Its pretty modest, but I acknowledge the issues you raise. That’s why it would have been good to examine this in more detail in select committee. The bill is based on the recommendations of the Advisory Committee on Restructuring and Redundancy that reported back to the government in 2008. The group looked at the issues you raise, along with the impact on small business, and also at alternative means of funding. So the bill is based on pretty comprehensive research, as well as considering how every other OECD country (except USA) has managed to have minimum redundancy rights without business collapsing.
Why do the NACT’s hate the ordinary working people so much ?
Q:
A:
In their philosophy of economics, cutting wages of employees and cutting expenses related to those employees is a primary driver of “higher productivity”. In other words, get the same out for less (hence higher productivity), by squeezing down on the labour component of production.
The whole idea of taking that same worker, boosting their wages by 25%, but then boosting the economic value of their work by 35% as the real route to higher productivity – that’s in the too hard basket.
Case in point: their attitude towards encouraging industrial development in NZ.
@ Loota: oops, correction – most on the poll have said they won’t ever be a Labour supporter…
In terms of your view that “In other words, get the same out for less (hence higher productivity), by squeezing down on the labour component of production.”…sounds awfully similar to Capitalism…!
Realistically though there needs to be more of a balance between this and say the views that you have expressed that wages should be increased by 25%.
To a degree increasing wages does make sense as well, there is a lot of truth in the saying if you “pay peanuts you get monkeys”, but the reality is there are always going to be people who do not have the capacity to generate the output required – this could be due to education, health & disabilities or plain old laziness (we’ve all worked with someone who has taken the mickey). In times of low unemployment this was fine as the more hands on deck the better. But in times of higher unemployment they are always the first to be culled.
@ Darien: thank you for this. While modest I can imagine some employers would still baulk at the idea however, why people (NACT) couldn’t at least allow it to get to the Select Committee so that it could be discussed in more detail, is beyond me.
That said, being self-employed contractors where we could be told tonight that there is no for us tomorrow, I am of the persuasion that people should assume more personal responsibility – that is, make choices and budget for a rainy day.
The rule of thumb for anyone who is self-employed is that we are meant to have 3 months worth of expenses (business and personal) saved for a rainy day.
While that is near impossible, it is something we keep in mind when making financial decisions from as little as deciding whether to get broadband or as big as deciding whether to buy a house.
Sometimes I think the best investment for any working person would be to send them all off to a budgeting course so that they learn to evaluate and plan their finances better.
@ Darien “@Chris – that question gets a bit tiresome to be honest.”
It may be tiresome – but its a fair point. You DID have many years and did not action something you say labour are committed to and find it such a huge issue you commit to carrying it thru to election year.
Of course – I think labour should come up with new ideas – and I really hope you di – its just the only things I see you coming up with are not well thought out / costed and seem simply to be pandering to the public mood / fears of the time.
@Rebecca: “Sometimes I think the best investment for any working person would be to send them all off to a budgeting course so that they learn to evaluate and plan their finances better.”
And people have the right to choose not to keep up with the Joneses, without being ostracised for doing so.
Deepred: well then maybe they shouldn’t expect so much from others in terms of assistance because they fail to even try & plan; you can’t have it both ways!
P.s I am not sure if the saying “keeping up with the Joneses” applies in this context? Saving for a rainy day requires one to be the opposite of the materialism that is normally associated with this saying. It means that you don’t get the new TV, Sky, Broadband, takeaways etc that you live well within your means so as to put money aside should the unforeseen happen…
No Darian – you are asking employers to have to set aside an additional 8% minimum for the first year and then an additional 4% for each employee there after. If an employer has ten workers on average of $50,000 ($500k annual wage bill) and then needs to set aside more money then something has to give. Come a recession like we have just had and workers get laid off then that bill could send the whole company to the wall. In addition as the economy comes out of the recession (very fragile recovery) then the employer is going to think very seriously about taking on additional staff with this hanging over his head.
This is an anti-business bill. It was never passed when Labout had the chance for good reasons. Only now from the comfort of opposition can you put forward such bills. It was always going to be defeated.
And just because something happens in Australia does not mean it is a good thing here (except for mining of course)
The only parties that have shown a complete lack of understanding of economics so far are ACT and National. The MP isn’t doing so well either.
I actually agree with this but it’s a little difficult when the pay is less than the cost price of going to work (yes, there are reasons to go to work losing money – it puts off the foreclosure on the house for starters).
Again, agreed.
My nephew almost lost his house a few years ago and it wasn’t until his parents stepped in and hired him a lawyer, an accountant and taught him how to budget that he was able to get on top of the bills. It’s something that people need to be taught in childhood but most people aren’t.
No, it’s not. Not everything can be done all at once. If you bothered to read the comments you’d see that the report on redundancy came out in 2008 – election year. If Labour had held on to power then it’s reasonable to assume that they would have followed up on the report. They didn’t and so had no time to act.
No it’s not as the workers are in business.
@ Rebecca: in this day & age you could think of it as peer pressure for grown-ups.
PS. For just one example of this adult peer pressure, I’ll cross-post A Mother’s writing on the “Is Equality Dead” topic.
http://blog.labour.org.nz/index.php/2010/04/27/is-equality-dead/comment-page-1/#comment-49551
Monty says:
This is very strange. Is Australia a role model for NZ ecoomically or not? They’ve figured out that there is economic value in retaining good workers and giving them increased security for the future. Why doesn’t that economic foresightedness work over here, Monty? (But mining does?)
Why does Labour and the Left hate privity of contract so much?
Deepred: l see where you are coming from now. However, learning good budgeting skills is often accompanied by a change in value systems so that you learn to be less susceptible to “peer pressure”.
If you are doing everything humanly possible to manage your own money in a way that any reasonable person would be expected to do so, and you still fall short then you should receive every possible assistance available including redundancy payment.
This kind of issue is very hard to quantify as every case, person & family is different.
Bottom line, Darien’s Bill deserved to at least be looked at & assessed.
Gooner: suggest you read the first paragraph of the wikipedia article on this subject as to why it is problematic:
@Rebecca : Thank you for your comments about my bill, and you are right, it should have been looked at in Select Committee. I also understand where you are coming from on the issue of self-employed contractors. It’s something I’ve done a lot of work on because I believe the shift to these kind of employment arrangements is deliberately designed to avoid employment legislation. Sure I accept that some self employed people want to be that way, but there’s a real problem with many of the “self employed”.
@Monty : No Monty – you are asking workers to put their economic livelihoods on the line, give their all to an employer who expects them to be productive and hard-working, but still to be dumped on the scrap-heap with nothing to tide them over during the hard times. Most modern employers don’t think the way you do and in fact, redundancy requirements can be a disincentive for making hasty decisions. For example, many employers joined the nine day fortnight scheme because of the redundancy liabilities in their agreements with workers. They decided it was better to try to make it work, keep skilled staff and wait the hard times out with a bit of support from the State.
Your arguments are the same as those we heard around four weeks annual leave, time and a half for public holidays, increasing the minimum wage and even the Employment Relations Act.
@Chris Your “why didn’t Labour do it” is completely unoriginal – we hear it all the time. But I won’t repeat Draco’s comments.
“the only things I see you coming up with are not well thought out / costed and seem simply to be pandering to the public mood / fears of the time.”
have you SEEN NACT policies????