The Employment Relations Amendment Bill No 2 (in other words, the no rights in 90 days bill) began its second reading in the House yesterday. Here’s Aaron’s story about how it has affected him.
The Employment Relations Amendment Bill No 2 (in other words, the no rights in 90 days bill) began its second reading in the House yesterday. Here’s Aaron’s story about how it has affected him.
This entry was posted on Friday, November 12th, 2010 at 3:01 pm and is filed under 90 day trial period, workers rights. 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.
That sucks!
!
!
The hoodie dude has been screwed over!
I’m outta here!
That dude in the video is right, it’s “just not the Kiwi way”.
From what he says he wasn’t dismissed under the 90 day clause as he didn’t have a contract. Not having a written contract would mean that minimum standards and rights apply which would exclude the 90 day bill which is opt in only and so would need a written agreement.
I do support the 90 days bill, though it would help me much more a few years ago when I arrived in NZ as an immigrant without any local references that all recruiters were asking for. I wasn’t quite aware back then that you can’t fire someone for underperformance here in the initial period of employment (or at least not easily) because I thought that’s the standard all over the world and I considered this paranoid levels of distrust to be discrimination or prejudice. But I fully understood it later and do not blame anyone now. When you can’t see how good someone is at work before you make the final decision about keeping them permanently, it is an awful risk for a small business to employ an unknown person without a handful of references you can easily check. I know how little many small businesses make because I know some owners and a wrong choice of one employee can break some of them.
My experience also says that employers do not fire employees who are good – it would be a loss to them.
Also, I was shocked with the work ethics of some Kiwis. In other parts of the world this kind of moving slowly, spending hours on chatting instead of working, not paying attention and so on, which I see often here, would not be tolerated and I’m not talking about China here, but the “socialist” Continental Europe. If this country wants to compete with Australia, this culture must change.
No contract, no 90-day probation. Yawn. Another straw grasped at by the CTU.
Why is this being used as an example against the 90 day law? This joker’s case does not even apply to the 90 day law. This seems a rather spurious way of conjuring up ill informed opinion against a law which will only aid in people getting hired for a job.
Too much blind ideology here, not enough reason.
Thanks for being so articulate Melusina, I have an 18 year old son and all he needed was a chance to prove himself which he has now done and he passed his 90 day trial. With the abolition of youth rates he needed all the help he could get. Labour in NZ seem to be totally alone in the world on this law, its 12 months in the UK brought in by Blair and even the unions in OZ supported their 6 month trial period, after all it is us workers who have to put up with rubbish workers not the bosses.
I disagree with your summation of NZ work ethics though.
I wonder if he’s a Labour member again…
@melusina – Kiwis have one of the better work ethics in the world, we also work some of the longest hours, can turn our hands to almost anyting, and get jobs done. we also beleive in fairness above all else. as you become more kiwiised you will realise this.
At Jeremy M harris – i wonder if your a national or act member?
troll all you want you lot, you know that this is not fair and helps no-one get a job.
Hi waterboy!
!
Here’s Aaron’s story about how it has affected him.
This is pathetic. How could it have affected him if he didn’t even sign a contract? What is the CTU,and Darien Fenton, up to now?
Did Darien even watch the video? If so why wasnt the fact that this man said he didnt have a contract lead to the conclusion that the 90 day law doesnt apply in this case?
Hi spud, ive been looking at red alert, just no time to comment, work, life and study gets in the way.
working longer after discovering that even though the trolls on here wont admit it prices of everything have gone through the roof.
Thanks for the tax cut bill it realy helped (not)
Poor you
Yes the price of living is pretty bad 
Oops, I’m sorry – I wrote my opinion on Kiwi work ethic without much thinking and it turned out quite rude. I was talking about some Kiwis – I’ve seen hard-working ones, mostly the self-employed, small family businesses, or professionals in well-paid jobs. Still, a lot of people look what I would call totally demotivated and even if they put in long hours, often there is a lot of private phone calls and chat in it.
I am aware that my opinion is a result of cultural differences, as I come from one of the most workoholic nations. Now I won’t tell which one so that you don’t dislike it for the offence I might have caused, but I looked up on the list of hours worked by country (enter “Working time” into Wikipedia to find it) and we are way better than you in hours worked. So please don’t hate me for saying out loud my genuine first impression. I like Kiwis for other things
Mr Farrar does a good job injecting some sanity into this particular example.
http://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2010/11/ctu_proves_the_law_is_great.html
I wonder if labour or CTU found someone who’d been given the chance to work because of this bill would they run an interview with them?
Cheers
@waterboy – no, and pointing out that on the last occasion Fenton posted one of these she failed to disclose that the person was a Labour Party member rightly leads one to question the validity of these posts…
You do understand that he could have had a trial period before the 90 day fire at will bill was passed don’t you? It’s just that he wouldn’t have had his rights removed to do so.
“often there is a lot of private phone calls and chat in it.” If they are working away from their families then it’s kinda understandable.
Chatting makes the days more enjoyable
I think this case raises two issues.
1. Sometimes its not about exactly what the law says, but what people believe it says. Technically without agreeing to the 90 days, the law may not apply. But what a hassle addressing that fact all the same.
2. The biggest probably with the 90 day law isn’t that new employees can be dismissed. It is that they can be arbitrarily dismissed. If its really “just not working out” then, even with an accelerated process for dismissing new employees, the minimum requirement must surely be a written notice of the dismissal and the reason.
Waterboy… who told you we have one of the best work ethics in the world and can do almost anything? That was what I thought before I left NZ but honestly, this is what we get told and there is actually no evidence at all to support this.
I work with people from all walks of life from many nations around the world. There are lazy Kiwis and good Kiwis, just like other nationalities. By saying that, Kiwis are not as well regarded as hard workers as our European counterparts. Thankfully we have trial periods here in the UK that the unions support, and it has allowed me to hire and train people that we usually wouldn’t have risked ourselves with.
Michael you beat me to it.
I too was going to point out that there is a far more balanced perspective on this at Kiwiblog. As always there are two sides to every story and Darien Fenton has conveniently overlooked the empoyers side.
So again the CTU puts forward a unless case (and AGAIN dosnt try to get the other side of the story).
Anyway – the guy didnt have a contract – so he wasnt fired under the 90 day law. AND he has a great and legitimate case to take to the DOL for being employed without a contrat.
CTU really seem to have a issue even understanding basic employment law. If he has no contract and can show he was working there – then its a clean slam for him – unless he’s not telling the truth which is why he is on a one-sided propaganda video as opposed to spending his payout.
The CTU seem to have used the same producers for this video as they used for their hobbit media management. For crying out loud Darien the 90 day law doesn’t even apply to this guy. Please stop trying to manipulate your readers who have the good sense to be able to get balanced information, and start telling the truth for a change.
I remember seeing this TV series where these poms went to work in sweatshops in India to see how their cheap clothes get made. The Indians aren’t allowed to chat!
@Craigofnz – you get it.
Most others don’t. Sure, Aaron has a PG, but that’s only because his employer got the law wrong.The point is if his employer had got the paper work right, Aaron wouldn’t have any recourse. And for those saying there’s two sides to a story – yep, but hello, most will never be told because there is no process or ability to hear either side.
And btw, this might surprise you, but I don’t see DPF as the independent and unbiased voice on these matters.
Those so desperately defending the 90 day law need to listen to some of the calls I’ve been getting. This week I had a call from a worker in Hawkes Bay who was fired under the 90 day law – he is now the fourth worker from the same firm. He has no recourse because in this case, the employer did have a written contract. Last week, I heard from a woman in Rodney who has been fired from two cafes in a row using the 90 day excuse.
@ Jeremy M Harris – cheap shot – I have no idea if Aaron is a Labour Party member or not and I don’t care, unless you are saying that somehow that means a worker has less rights than other workers?
You know, there are people who are awful to work with, but for the boss to give them the reason why they must go and defend it in court is kinda awkward. Like, when someone stinks due to bad hygiene. Will you take samples of sweat from his armpits to present them to the judge or what?
There was a situation in one place I worked where they hired a girl that got on everybody’s nerves just because of personality. It was so bad that three other workers said to the owner “if she stays we leave”. So the owner would pay her wages as if she worked normal hours, but told her not to come to work and look for another job instead. It took her almost 4 months to find another job and all the time she was paid for nothing, because that was the only safe way to get rid of her.
You know, this is how you lose elections – when you start looking like you are representing first and foremost not the average person, working or trying to find a job, but only those who are unable to hold a job and probably have issues, because looking for new people and interviewing them is something most businesses hate and they normally won’t fire adequate employees unless it’s redundancy due to economy.
“Will you take samples of sweat from his armpits to present them to the judge or what?: Lady you are sick, but I’d like to see that
I like that paying someone to look for another job idea
” Last week, I heard from a woman in Rodney who has been fired from two cafes in a row using the 90 day excuse.”
Quelle surprise, she sounds like a dream employee