Surprise, surprise, the Government has completely ignored the submissions and protests of those opposing changes to the Employment Relations and Holidays Acts.
The Select Committee has reported back on the two bills and have recommended almost no changes. In the Employment Relations Bill No 2, the extension of the 90 day no rights trial periods to all workplaces, the restricting of workers to their unions at work and the weakening of personal grievance provisions remain.
In the Holidays Amendment Bill, employers will still be able to demand a medical certificate for a single day’s absence (one of the more silly provisions that I really thought the government might ditch) and the sale of the fourth week’s annual leave and the weakening of rights around alternative statutory holidays will go ahead.
What’s annoying is while the government’s is prepared to rush through bad employment law under urgency to please an international corporation, they are not prepared to listen to the 8,000 people who took the trouble to make submissions opposing these two bills, or to the 22,000 workers who rallied across New Zealand a couple of weeks ago.
There’s nothing about these changes that will improve productivity or enhance workplace relationships. There’s nothing here that will help our wages keep pace with, let alone catch up with Australia. This is a feeble attempt to please employers and business at the expense of some pretty fundamental rights.
The only possible message for Kiwi workers from this is that the government has its ears tight shut when it comes to their issues – unless they want their ideas and help to get through a recession.
Select Committees might be relegated to a perception that they are just windowdressing for acts to be passed regardless of reason or belief. On Maori TV the other night exasperation was expressed over the Select Committee for the Seabed and foreshore. “We have already expressed our opinions through endless hui, so what is the point of going through the Select Committee to be ignored all over again.”
Maybe constant Urgency would save money and time and be a bit more honest up front.
I can add National’s desire for a low wage economy to the list of reasons to settle elsewhere in the world.
Already on that list is their disregard for preserving our key asset, our natural environment.
And with home ownership rates among the younger generations consistently falling, we’re becoming all the more mobile.
Boomers will soon wonder who they have left to pay for their retirement.
It is a renewed time for unions and workers to step up the pressure on this unfair NAT govt even more. This is an opportunity to take the case of unions out to workers across NZ, whether they be ‘blue collar’ or ‘white collar’.
Hmmmm or no collar at all.
I suggest these law changes will be ‘rushed through’ as well.
Gerry ‘Brownshirt’ Brownlee has scheduled urgency for the house in the near future.
Doesn’t that seem strange- arranging a future date when there will need to be a ‘rush’ other than Ministers making a rush for their overseas flights
Those pesky submissions sure make good firestarters!
Trying to see an upside to this, and this is all I could come up with.
Despite the fact that the National / ACT government are prepared to turn a deaf ear to the thousands who submitted on this bill, should this bill become a poorly formed Act under this government it won’t last long. The next government will be able to point at the protests against this bill, the poor process it went through to become law, and then change it.
Urgency: what is the government up to percentage-wise in the use of Urgency? It seems like every other day’s urgent, so are they running at 50% at the moment.
@ghw : Yep I think we will see more action in the House on bad employment laws in the next two weeks.
Everyone – don’t give up!
This government disgusts me more every day that goes by.
As a nation we need vision and policies that will lift our wages and provide a future for our kids. This legislation would look harsh in a banana republic. There is no place for it in a developed nation.
Darien, operhaps a causus brainstorm on questions to ask that will reveal glaringly that rather than helping us close the gap on australia this will widen it…
They have unions far stronger than ours and higher wages. This govt seems to think demonising a largely emasculated union set up in NZ will help. They did it in the 90′s and now they want to finish the job despite their being little evidence of unions being the cause of any of our woes. Good diversion fromt he SCF giveaway of $20m to non qualifying investors (Stuart that 20m could have gone to HB)
PS anyopne seen the british comedy/mockumentary “Thick of It”? Google it non politicians and politicians alike may laugh, or cry.
Great article on the importance of strong, organised unions:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/02/opinion/02herbert.html?src=me&ref=general
Nice catch CV.
“The book describes an “organizational revolution” that took place over the past three decades in which big business mobilized on an enormous scale to become much more active in Washington, cultivating politicians in both parties and fighting fiercely to achieve shared political goals. This occurred at the same time that organized labor, the most effective force fighting on behalf of the middle class and other working Americans, was caught in a devastating spiral of decline.
Thus, the counterweight of labor to the ever-increasing political clout of big business was effectively lost. ”
Unfortunately the other thing at play here is the deliberate strategy of presenting policies in a particular way that to agree with them, support and vote for them and to later disagree requires a person to admit they were wrong, or worse, stupid to have been duped. People dont generally make such admissions, even when it means they continue to support policies that dont do what they claim to.
Wouldn’t the 90 day trial period be better for the unemployed? It will give them a chance to hire someone and see if they will work out. I still don’t see anything wrong with that. I am from the states and the trial period is up to a year in some areas.
jackp.
The trial period is not the problem, its the no need to give reasons for terminating it.
How do you think it reduces unemployment to have a 90 day trial? Logic and economics suggest that employers hire because they need a position filled, they dont invent a position to see if someone works out.
So, it’s a job which existed anyway, not a magically created by 90 day trial job. If you have proof of otherwise I would be happy to read it?
I see what you are saying, they would hire them no matter what because a position needs to be filled. But what happens if the employee wasn’t truthful and lied just to get the job?
Like I said, I dont object to the trial. In your example, I would say to them “I am not extending your job beyond the 90 days because you lied about your experience and havent been able to get to that level in the 90 days.”
Under this law I dont have to say anything.
What if you are an employer of low skilled workers, and it is cheaper for you to have people in 3 month bursts, recruiting is no biggie, training is non existant, but this way you have basically a permanent casual workforce, no holiday pay, no contribution to kiwisaver and so on… so you just keep turning over yur workforce every 90 days.