Heather is another worker who has come forward to the CTU about being unfairly sacked under the 90 day trial period law. Here’s her story. Now watch the righties go hunting for a conspiracy.
Heather is another worker who has come forward to the CTU about being unfairly sacked under the 90 day trial period law. Here’s her story. Now watch the righties go hunting for a conspiracy.
This entry was posted on Monday, August 16th, 2010 at 11:00 pm and is filed under Employers, justice, labour, union, workforce. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
2 weeks before Christmas
You may have missed it Darien But I asked a question on your previous post, on this subject. I hope don’t mind me raising it again.
But, will you be addressing any of the rallies on Saturday, to tell the gathered workers that the Labour Party fully supports the CTU’s Fairness at Work campaign?
Serious question Darien…
You’ve been claiming that there is no right to appeal or redress thanks to the 90-day bill.
However, the TVNZ article about Heather’s case mentioned that the case is being appealed at the moment.
What’s going on there?
Another activist – I presume.
This is a beat up- the purpose of the legislation is to open opportunities for prospective employees who would otherwise struggle.
I friend manages a small business. She gave a worker the opportunity under the 90 day trial even although she had concerns about language barriers. Sadly the area of the business means that there could be a serious Health and Safety risk. My friend has sweated over having to let the worker go.
a couple of points
1 My friend only gave the opportunity because of the 90 day trial
2 She hates the fact that it has not worked out and has lost considerable sleep over the issue
3 The Health and safety concerns are such that the risk to the business is too much if an instruction is not clearly understood.
4 The 90 day trial means that there is no risk of a legal action.
5 My friend would never intentionally employ someone to have to let them go (too much effort and cost.
Your general distrust of employers is sad and typically union. How about you for balance also publish the success stories of the 90 day trial – you know the ones where an employee was a risk and would not have got a job but for the 90 day trial and would have lingered on the dole queue and then was a success for the company and the employee – but then your ideological opposition would mean there is no chance there is such a story out there?
Meh, the PR purpose of the legislation “is to open opportunities for prospective employees”
New jobs come when firms have extra works orders or customer orders that they cannot handle with existing staff.
The 90 day right to fire law generates not a single extra works order or customer order for firms.
There will be no extra jobs due to the 90 day right to fire law.
And with unemployment running at ~7%, inexperienced risky staff at the bottom of the barrel sta inexperienced, risky and bottom of the barrel because there are plenty of better candidates in the job market to choose from.
This is regardless of the 90 day right to fire law.
This is your defense after the disaster that was florences post.
Come on. Another one sided beat up with no “other side of the story”
@Jenny2 – Labour MPs, including me, will be at the rallies on Saturday to support the CTU’s campaign. No politicians have been asked to speak – it is the CTU’s rally and that’s fair enough.
@petermcc – there is no right of redress if a worker is sacked in the first 90 days. However, in this case, there is a question about whether the worker could be put onto a 90 day trial period when her employer changed hands – and therefore, if the 90 day trial period was lawful.
People who have brought a business and have taken the risk of keeping the old staff on should have the right to use the 90 day trial.
If the old owners had employed a lemon, why should the new owners have to keep them on once they realise.
Can’t new owners simply buy the assets of the business – that doesn’t entail taking on existing employees.
Also – can employees fire the new owner if the new owner turns out to be a lemon?
Loota – of course – they could get off their butts, raise their own money and risk everything they own and start their own business.
Only to find that they wouldn’t want to get stuck with leamon staff themselves – and so the cycle goes.
So – how do you know that the two examples given that the staff member wasnt a lemon? You dont – yet you are happy to jump on a employer = bad bandwagon (a bandwagon that the wheels have fallen off)
Yet another crock. Come on. Put up or shut up.
Listen to her. At 1.19 she starts to tell the reason she was let go. Then the film is edited to cut out the detailed reason she was given.
No evidence of unfairness here.
Uh…being dismissed without being formally told the reason is unfair.
The former employee wouldn’t want to prejudice any future legal action so that is one explanation.
LOL – so she starts telling the reasons that she was let go – then thats edited out, and you say she want told the reason.
You cannot have it both ways…..
But she WAS told the reasons. WE however are not told the reasons.
But she WAS told the reasons. WE however are not told the reasons.
She was not told the reason Fisiani, you seem to be too involved in your theory about the editing to hear what Heather actually says in the rest of the piece after the 1.19 mark.
Yes the clip was edited, probably to fit into a YouTube format, but Heather clearly gives the reason she was told at the time for her firing. She… “… was not what they were looking for.”
Heather then states, for some time, that she doesn’t know where she went wrong to lose the job she performed well for her previous employer. She is left guessing what it was that wasn’t right, was it how she looked, how she did the job? She was given no details.
Employers can fire employees, if they have grounds. Last year, my parents had to fire an employee for theft. They had evidence, and they showed the evidence to the employee. He had no answer to the evidence, and down the road he went.
In Heather’s case, no natural justice, no reason given for her dismissal. I would have thought a right wing person would be alarmed at the attack on the rights of the individual to have a fair hearing and to be able to reply to reply in their defence demonstrated in this case.
Some balance. Please. Otherwise you just look like propagandists.
Let’s also show how the 90-day trial has benefited workers. This will help the public weigh up if the legislation does more good than harm, or vice versa.
We’re all interested in improving the lives of workers, aren’t we?
Cherry picked examples just make you look devious.
“Let’s also show how the 90-day trial has benefited workers” Perhaps it hasn’t
Let’s also show how the 90-day trial has benefited workers.
That’s up to the NACT government, Not Fooled. It’s their policy, they need to show some solid proof.
The Unions aren’t interested in what is best for all workers?
Since they are in the business of looking out for workers, one would hope they’d be looking at these issues from all angles.
But it seems to me they just want to parrot the Labour party line.
No wonder Union membership is so low.
@ Not Fooled – After Goff changed his views the other day about the 4 week of holiday for cash – I think its more Labour parrots the unions line more than the other way around.
No Not Fooled, if you have a look at Darien’s post at 9.47, you will see that this is the CTU’s campaign.
To quote Darien.
Labour MPs, including me, will be at the rallies on Saturday to support the CTU’s campaign. No politicians have been asked to speak – it is the CTU’s rally and that’s fair enough.
They are parroting no one.
The CTU is saying that this policy is not best for workers, they are saying that every year 1 in 5 new hires will be fired under the 90 day rule, with no reason given. They are saying 1 in 5 new hires will lose their job.
The CTU, who are in the business of looking out for their members say otherwise, and they are bringing forward their evidence to support their case.
You clearly think that the 90 day law is good for workers, where is your evidence?
Sean says
I would have thought a right wing person would be alarmed at the attack on the rights of the individual to have a fair hearing and to be able to reply to reply in their defence demonstrated in this case.
But Sean are you not alarmed the employer has not been given a chance to have a fair hearing? or are rights not applicable to employers to.
The trouble with hypocrites is they either dont realise or dont care.
I dont know the rights and wrongs of this girls case but i would certainly like to hear both sides before making judgement
Thanks Mark, for calling me a hypocrite.
I would indeed be alarmed if the employer did not get a chance for a fair hearing on this matter, but they did. The employer could have stated their case for firing Heather when they did so.
The employer chose not to. That is the nub of the complaint.
@Sean – you got it. And the employer hasn’t lost his livelihood, and future job prospects.
@ Darien – I think you will find that the young lady only lost her local job prospects when she became a poster child for the CTU.
I dont believe any reasonable employer would trust her now.
>>You clearly think that the 90 day law is good for workers, where is your evidence?
Perhaps I’ll point a camera at some Young Nats and ask them.
That would be convincing, huh.
Darien Fenton:
Would you like to be asked to speak?
Is there anything you would like to say to these thousands of assembled workers, if you were asked to speak?
Not Fooled: does the 90 day law still apply if its your mum or your dad who owns the firm who employs you?
chris: Maybe the employers you are thinking of want sheeple instead of people. From my point of view, I don’t believe any reasonable employee will trust this business owner now.
“My friend only gave the opportunity because of the 90 day trial”
Monty, do you mean your friend only gave that person the opportunity or that they weren’t going to hire anyone?
Rebecca, really, someone bought a business with leomns for employees? By your reckoning I could sell my business to a new company I have set up for say, $1, then I could bring in the 90 day rule, then I could use that to remove everyone I considered a “lemon” because I dont need a reason, and I wouldn’t even have to pay redundancy. What a great idea. Given this policy, as suggested by someone above is actually to help employees, can you outline how this scenario (above) helps employees?
It amazes me how many people here seem to consider employees as liabilities not assets.
I see employees as assets and employers as leveraging those assets to generate profit in return for a wage. Give and take, a kind of balance if you will. Some here seem to place no value on loyalty (on both sides) and see it as a war. I dont know if you’ve seen the result of most wars…
Could you perhaps interview the pharmacy employer so we get a balanced view? For all we know she could have been taking psuedo-effidrene to on sell to P-cooks, and without the employer’s side of the story we are just left wondering. If you really want to make this campaign work you really do need to present it in a balanced way.
@ Loota – Nope – we like most employers look for smart, effective, professional people who help the business grow. We dont have sheep – we have highly paid, happy, staff. Most business only want good staff – just seems that the “sheep” in the video just wasnt good enough to make it as one of those ‘good staff’ that you want to keep.
Perhaps if you stopped just looking at the “lower end of the market” there is a whole other world out there.
@ Tracy “Seeing staff as liabilities and not assets”.
Its like anything – you want them to all be assets – that is a win, win – but sadly there are a lot of dropkicks out there who you wouldnt want and they are nothing but liabilities to your business. You want them gone a.s.a.p.
@Jenny2 – these are the CTU’s rallies and who speaks is up to them. If you want to know what I would say about this law, watch parliament tomorrow, when the bill will have its first reading.
Oh, and so the employer couldn’t take 60s to tell the employee why she was being fired? The employer couldn’t be bothered to engage in any kind of performance management process?
Firing with no reason given: is this really what you would do as an employer who tries to find and retain good staff?
Go on defend it if you wish, but it is bad business management practice, and bad people management practice.
@ Loota – as someone with quite a lot of successful management experience – I feel comfortable with my ‘business management practice”
Sometimes you just have to know that you cant turn a pigs ear into a silk purse and cut your losses. And its a waste of time / effort and money doing so. Much smarter to cut the strings of second rate employees.
So your “successful management experience” precludes spending 60s to explain to someone where they have gone wrong?
Where did you learn your people management skills from? Reading Dilbert?
Hi Darien, I am sorry I missed catching what you said in parliament about the ammendments to the ERA, yesterday, August 19.
Is it possible to put your comments in a post on this blogsite?