A UMR survey released today by the CTU shows that 80 per cent of New Zealanders oppose the Government’s planned changes to dismissal law. Previous polls had asked the question about whether respondents supported a 90 day trial and unsurprisingly, the majority said yes – because after all these were already allowed under previous law.
But the government’s proposed changes in the Employment Relations Bill (No. 2) remove the right of all workers to be told why they have been sacked and to challenge that reason (among other things). As the Human Rights Commission told the Select Committee last Thursday :
It is unusual for Parliament to take away rights, particularly such a fundamental right as the right of access to a hearing. Denial of redress in this manner in something as basic as employment has profound human rights implications.
The UMR Research telephone survey of a nationally representative sample of 750 New Zealanders asked the following question:
“Do you think that all employees should have the right to appeal if they think they have been unfairly dismissed, even if their dismissal was during the first 90 days of their employment?
The response was:
Yes 80%
No 18%
Unsure 2%
Submissions have already begun on this Bill and will continue day and night over the next few weeks to allow the large number of submitters to be heard. Even then, thousands of what the government calls “form” submissions and those who have gone to the trouble to add comments will be ignored.
I agree with the CTU that the government needs to rethink this policy. People from across the spectrum of incomes, ages, regions and occupations strongly oppose what the Government is doing and that’s not surprising. This law offends against the basic Kiwi value of fairness and access to justice.
ACT rolled the Minister of Labour’s recommendation that the 90 day no rights trial period be limited to workplaces of 50 or less and won an extension of it to all workplaces. Surely, now ACT is so discredited, the government can afford to be brave enough to revisit this policy and do the right thing by Kiwis?
If an employee dosnt have confidence in their ability to get past a 90 day trial, then they can always negotiate not to have it in their contract.
If we still had the Unions we could still do something about things like this. But no all we can do is sit and watch.
If we still had the Unions we could still do something about things like this. But no all we can do is sit and watch.
If an employee turns out in a 90 day trial to have a poor service attitude in a service industry or is not a team player in a team role and is then show the door and allowed to seek alternative employment I take it you would consider this to be unfair dismissal. The other employees would welcome .
The poll is rather silly because it does not define unfair dismissal. I am actually amazed that 20% of people would tolerate unfair dismissal. I would not. Nor does the proposed law. The two examples I quote would not be unfair to a reasonable person but why would we expect reasonable from a party of trade union officals and school teachers.
To be frank I don’t why the Nats decided to pick on such a relatively trivial issue when they could have spent their capital on a much more significant productivity improvement.
Nevertheless, I’m unsure why everyone is so exercised about it.
I mean, if employers abuse it, the courts will function as per normal, right?
So what’s the issue?
That was a loaded question – If you asked:
Should employers have the ability to hire with a 90 day trial period where the employee cannot bring a unjustified dismissal claim?
You would get a different result.
Fisiani, the problem is that the law says if someone is dismissed during the 90 day trial, the employer does not have to explain why they have terminated the employment. So for most terminated employees, there is no way to tell if they were dismissed unfairly. Consequently the 90 Day Law provides no way of defining what is unfair dismissal – it fudges the whole fairness issue. And THAT is the issue.
It it has been shown, chris (eg in question time in the House), that for many jobs, the person will not get the job if they don’t agree to the 90 Day Law. They will not be able to negotiate it away.
So, basically, it’s not so much having a 90 Day trial that is the problem, but the WAY the law is imposed. It opens the door for an sloppy or unscrupulous employer to use it unfairly.
“So for most terminated employees, there is no way to tell if they were dismissed unfairly.”
Agreed but why is that an issue? If everyone who is dismissed after 90 days shows that up on their CV, regardless of why that happened, why is that an issue?
Most people worth employing, nay, everyone worth employing, manages somehow from early days to build up that record that says to an employer yes, rather than no.
And then for really really short period, they get to prove the fact they weren’t full of hot air, in their C.V.
I mean, what’s the big deal?
I get sick of hearing from right-wingers that by abolishing workers’ rights one can create jobs. If that’s all National’s got then we’re f#*ked.
And now National’s making a big mistake by kicking union officials off work premises. It’s back to the 90′s. Disgusting.
Darien we’ve got to strengthen the unions again.
Why on earth would Fisiani not expect fairness from a party full of trade union officials and school teachers?
Top people, all of them (us)!
Fisi, I would return the question. Who would expect fairness from a government of rorters, liars, criminals and bully boys? Eh?
I love the Right Wingers trying vainly to justify the empowering of bad employers and bad employment practices by National’s 90 day right to fire. Also that the stripping back of workers’ rights to basic due process is something trivial or unimportant.
Yeah typical Right Wing tactic to present this issue as being just about the employee, when in fact it takes two to tango here – the performance of the employee AND the performance of the employer.
There, not rocket science is it?
I’m waiting for the 90 day right to walk off a job with no notice.
So that employers and managers have to prove themselves to the staff they hire, and if they don’t the employee has rights to walk off the job without even saying why they are going.
Fair’s fair after all eh boys?
Why are you sick of it, who was saying that, on this thread?
Hey guess what? You’re right. And let’s look at the employers’ performance, shall we.
Lets see….
Avalanche of cases proving massive and widespread social deprivation arising therefrom?
Nope. Not yet.
But let’s keep a lookout, just in case.
There, not rocket science, is it?
Funny how you think that unfair practices have to hurt a tonne of people first before they can be recognised as unfair.
The Right Wing concept of acceptable casualties in the course of business.
Yep lets have that 90 day right to walk off the job with no notice and no explanation, that’ll even things up. What’s good for the goose and all that, yeah?
Since 85% of people are employees I’m suprised 85% didn’t respond yes…
Might’ve been within the margin of error?
Also a lot of independent contractor types out there these days.
Unsure why the numbers don’t quite match up as one might expect.
Could be, I didn’t think about that… Probably is if the surveyed less than 1,500 people and when you add in the undecideds…
“The Right Wing concept of acceptable casualties in the course of business.”
The phrase “they neither hear nor understand” springs to mind, Loota.
Agree with you Darien. With the ACT caucus all being aware of the stealing of a dead child’s name for a passport fraud and the terminal condition this is going to leave them in, I would suggest that some of the pieces of legislation they were pushing should be urgently reviewed.
The 90-day one-strike-and-you-are-out bill should be the first.
Fire at will is all about power and wages. It has never been anything to do with productivity whoever said that above. Productivity to the right is more hours/more product. Which, fundamentally is not improvement in productivity.
This and other bills designed to push workers in to a small corner and made to feel like they should be grateful for the minimum wage they get for it is manisfestly unfair not to mention not actually a driver of productivity improvement.
Fire at will does not create jobs just like a raise in the minimum wage does not cut jobs.
I like the angry face Spud.
83% rise in labour productivity. 60 plus % decrease in capital investment. Only 15% average rise in ordinary time wages. (If you exclude housing and interest rates from inflation) What more do they want.
Where are those figures from..?
Over what period of time..?
Why would a reasonable employer not want to give reasons to someone not making it past the 90 days?
National made a tactical blunder (yay!) extending the coverage of “90 day fire at will” to all workers. With turnover and fluctuations in employment, hundreds of thousands of people annually are potentially going to be exposed to this appalling attack on natural justice principles in employment situations.
Apart from the usual suspects here-Fizzy, JMH and the rest, many right leaning voters are now waking up. Holy ****! this could affect ME and my family, not just those pesky union stirrers. So comments about the NZCTU poll aside, this may be another backside biter for National, like ‘national standards’ with or without ACT.
Especially if you happened to find out you have an ex heroin junkie on your pay roll, you’d be wanting to get rid of them within 90 days.
No, it’s about establishing the person is who they said they were, when they applied to join.
Yes, it has been everything to do with it.
Er, no, and yes. Productivity to the right is about happiness, wonder, joy, pride, you name it.
If producing more product isn’t improvement in productivity, then what is?
9
Day Law !!
I get a bit sick of being called right wing because I’m economically liberal…
reid said:
Ahhhhhhhh…its not improved productivity because you have missed out half the equation.
matty siad:
OK so lets get rid of people who have successfully got rid of their drug habits and are now making something of their lives, thats really smart.
You just brought up another reason to get rid of the 90 day right to fire legislation.
KJT said:
Actually I think you understand very well that the top 2% of the people at the top of the pyramid scheme, the most wealthy asset holding capitalist warriors, want it all for themselves, and want as little as possible distributed to other people.
How many interviews were attempted by UMR to obtain 750 responses? Another UMR survey got a 10% response to a telephone survey – so what were the opinions of the other 90%? The validity of this survey is non existent. So is the ability of Fenton to understand how surveys are conducted – yet we pay her large amounts of taxpayer money
Meh, the uncertainty is built into the error rate (not shared).
Plus you used the response rate to just one other supposed UMR survey to draw your conclusions. Yeah like that’s so valid in itself
Thanks all for contributions. Anyone can argue about polls and their veracity. Bet we see similar arguments when we see a poll showing Labour is picking up support and National losing it.
Hearing submissions on this bill right now. So far today, only one supporting it, although we have the Business Roundtable after dinner.
Great news about the polls!
!