Last week, Grant Robertson wrote about the Massey Uni cleaners who were facing massive cuts to hours or dismissal due to redundancy which was due to happen today.
Yesterday, Chief Judge GL Colgan issued a judgement which requires the parties to bargain for redundancy “entitlements”, but not including monetary compensation for redundancy. He has also said that the cleaners should not be dismissed today so that the statutory processes arising from their entitlement to redundancy can take place.
It’s an interesting judgement. It confirms that workers have an right to redundancy entitlements, despite there being specific requirements in the cleaners’ agreement that there be no redundancy compensation.
Of course all of this could be avoided if there were minimum redundancy entitlements in law. But that’s a story for the next Labour Government (and a sorry tale about redundancy under the NACT government).
Well they can start up there own union or get help from a union already going.
And your right, there needs to be a “minimum redundancy entitlements in law” make it at least a Two weeks Avg. wages.
So $1000 dollars per worker ($500 a week) minimum. It will make companies manger there work better and stop them from taking more than they need, and hopeful prevent redundancy willy nilly and maybe find better ways of using there work force.
The VC of Massey is former Youth affairs and education minister Steve Maharey…I don’t know how close he is still to the Labour party but…this is happening under his leadership…maybe Labour should deal directly with it’s former cabinet member- might lead to a better outcome for the workers
What sort of entitlements would be bargained for if there is no monetary compensation? Are we talking about providing job search and placement type programs etc?
@indiana : good question; but is the only compensation for the loss of a job monetary compensation?
Isn’t that the general expectation…as a former union organiser, what would you be recommending to the employees?
There should be a minimum redundancy provision. A month’s pay (only after a year of service) and another week for each additional year of service is pretty common in professional contracts. Even more importantly, there should also be a specified minimum notice period — not the vague “reasonable employer” wording in the current law. Again, one month’s notice, or pay in lieu seems common and reasonable.
Of course, the flip side is that it needs to be very straight forward to dismiss people for genuine issues with burning your feet, and some of the small changes National have made here are an improvement. But I agree that they probably won’t add minimum redundancy provisions. But they won’t roll them back (much) if you add them. That’s why we need nice, regular changes of government every few cycles. It keeps most of the good things, and removes some of the crazy stuff (tounge marginally in cheek for that last comment).
Yeah they’re entitled to redundancy
Darian – Labour had 9 years to implement the guaranteed redundancy payments you want. Why would the electorate trust you to do it next time labour are in power if you didn’t do it last time?
Credibility – not very much.
It’s easy being in opposition, you can call for sensible policies on unicorns, rainbows and sunny picnics for all. But don’t you ever sit back and think of what it looks like when you expose your lack of credibility like this? All you are doing is pointing out the obvious fact that Labour didn’t deliver when it had the chance. A bit rich to castigate National for not doing something we all knew they wouldn’t do even prior to electing them.
@ nadir – Well said.
Many comments / promises plenty that they had a chance to implement but never did. You also note that they never actually make a formal announcement that they will stand on the issue (with the notable exception of Mallard stating it was formal policy that all mining land sold to overseas will be taken back into government hands)
Also – given that business generally only make redundanceys when things are not going well – how do you expect all NZ businesses to be able to afford this?
@Indiana – I think there should be redundancy compensation, but in this case, it’s ruled out, so it may well be things like job search, notice etc.
@Nadir/Chris – not very original sorry. Labour never promised to implement redundancy compensation. But we did promise other things for workers, which we delivered on and it doesn’t mean that it won’t be part of our policy for next time, because redundancy has become much more of an issue since the recession. At least we didn’t promise not to raise GST and then blatantly break that promise within the first 18 months of government.
Morning Darien
@Hey Spud – heading off now to Whangaparaoa for a days visiting.
Darien, thanks to you and Grant for bringing attention to the stuggle of the cleaners at Massey University.
The real issue here is the very vulnerable position of workers who are employed by contractors, by labour hire companies or by through other third party arrangements whee they don’t have any control over their employment.
The Labour Government tried to fix this with the Part 6A amendment to the Employment Relations Act that guarantees jobs for cleaners and other vulnerable workers during contract change situations, but there is still a problem following the change when a client like Massey works with a contractor to make widespread cuts to working hours while refusing to take any responsibility for the outcomes.
The Employment Court has recognised this situation and has set up a process to give the cleaners and their union more say about the non-monetary “redundancy entitlements”, but the problem will not be fixed until we get Vice-Chancellor Maharey and his Massey managers into the same room as the contractor and the union with a commitment to engage in finding a just solution.
“you can call for sensible policies on unicorns, rainbows and sunny picnics for all.”
Actually, Nadir that’s one of the strategies that got National party in power.
Chris, did you miss the announcement earlier this week that businesses , in large percentages, regret the lay offs, and think they over reacted and are now struggling to keep up productivity