The lockout of more than 100 workers at ANZCO CMP Meatworks in Marton is now in its second month over the employer’s demand for 20% paycuts and increased workloads. Efforts by the workers’ union to reach a compromise so far have been rejected. The local community, food-banks and workers from around the country, many of whom are already struggling from the impact of cost of living increases,are digging deep to help these workers feed their families. That can’t carry on. Families are hurting, the local economy is suffering and New Zealand’s international reputation is being affected.
Predictably, there’s been silence from the Minister of Labour and John Key in this very serious situation, and they’ve left their hapless and inexperienced Rangitikei candidate to deal with it.
Then there’s the almost daily announcements of lay-offs. Today it’s Milton Woollen Mills. Yesterday, it was Sleepyhead.
The National Party Industrial Relations policy for this election will encourage more of the hard-line tactics being used by ANZCO CMP. They want to give employers the right to veto multi-employer collective agreements, refuse to conclude collective bargaining, and put workers on individual agreements when they start work.
National’s priorities for early legislation, announced today, include cutting pay for young workers and privatising the ACC work account. How sad is that?
The last time a National government tried these race to the bottom ideas, the wage gap with Australia grew enormously, workers lost long-held conditions, low pay became endemic in many important industries and we lost a generation of skilled workers.
John Key insists that he will build a brighter future (actually, I thought he promised that last election).
There’s no brighter future for laid off or locked out workers, or those who only got a 25 cents increase in the minimum wage this year.
Clear choice Saturday.
Off thread : trolling. Warned, Darien
What really scares me about National’s policies is the 80% youth wage. When this policy is combined with the 90-day work trial, we get a scenario where dodgy businesses can hire a young person for peanuts for 6 months, then fire them under the 90-day work trial for no reason, only to go and hire another young person and begin the process again.
This doesn’t solve the youth unemployment problem, it simply gives employers (some will do it, not all, I accept there are good employers out there) the ability to get cheap labour without any repercussions. This system will be wide open to abuse and a young person who is rapt to have found a job will be quickly disappointed when he or she finds themselves surplus to requirements as soon as their 6 months on the 80% of minimum wage is up.
This is disgusting and has to be stopped.
You’re right Mark. Thanks for pointing this out.
it’s all about keeping businesses operating and people employed in viable businesses. Unless employers can maintain positive cash flow and profitable businesses they will close – meaning all staff are laid off. Unions seem to forget this basic fundamental of business. Remember that it is the business owners who have risked capital to enable employment – it is not just workers affected here. Please Darien balance your views instead of trotting out one sided union arguments that workers are the only ones affected – I know you understand these issues so don’t sell yourself short
Mark, I’m guessing from your comments you have never employed staff before. The reality is that no business would sack a productive employee and replace them with someone new to save 20%. Remember 80% of normal wage x 3 months is still a lot of money if the employee doesnt perform. They would sack someone if they were unproductive, so basically it’s up to the employee to work hard and do a good job if they want to keep the job. What’s unfair about that? Jobs aren’t the same as benefits.
Spot on Sadu.
The cost of recruiting and training people would more than wipe out the ‘savings’ of behaving in the manner Mark (and, given she thanks him for the remark) Darien suggests.
“The reality is that no business would sack a productive employee and replace them with someone new to save 20%”
Agreed. I also, as an employer and one who knows many employers have not met ONE who created a job because of the 90 day trial. They have availed themselves of the 90 day trial BUT NOT because they magically created a job, they had a job anyway and utilised the trial period. Which is fine, it’s law, BUT NOT the reason we were told it was coming in.
Sadu , what about people who leave an existing job and take up a new one, but because of some minor thing are sacked.
This 90 day law applies to everyone, there is nothing to say its for unskilled workers.
When it was introduced evidence was provided of a job ad for a qualified structural engineer with the the proviso that the ‘voluntary’ 90 rule would apply.
This law stifles labour market mobility as workers and professionals stay in their existing job and not go for a higher paying job or a promotion in another company
darrenw
Do you accept that unless there are new jobs created the lowering of youth wages for the first 6 months won’t in and of itself create jobs but is more likely to see youth offered jobs where an adult might otherwise have taken it up?
Starting a new job is like starting a new relationship, and it’s not guaranteed to work out. The problem is that it has always been heavily slanted against the employer – to the point where they wear ALL the risk should things not work out. This can be very very expensive and damaging to small employers.
There are even people who deliberately slack off after getting a new job, hoping they will get fired without proper process and can then claim the 10 grand for unjustified dismissal.
The 90 day rule puts some of that risk onto the employee. Now they need to do some research to decide if the job offer is right for them, and if they actually have the right skills to fulfill the role well. They need to consider what would happen if for some reason the relationship doesn’t work out, and decide accordingly if it’s worth the risk.
Traditionally, ALL of this risk has been on the employer. Now, both parties need to be prudent and both parties carry some risk. I think that’s fair.
Ghost, it might stiffle labour market mobility for older people, but for young folks like myself, all I see is the opportunity to prove myself – it is good in that sense.
If an employer abuses the system they are only costing themselves money in the form of opportunity costs – getting someone up to speed to flush them down the lou and start over. That would hit productivity.
Sadu, you are right, employing is so difficult, and with some employers giving good references to bad employees they are happy to see go it makes it very difficult.
I disagree that the field is now even. I believe it has slanted toward employers, otherwise why not make it mandatory to give written reasons for the failure to make the job permanent after 90 days. THAT might make it even.
As soon as anything is rushed under urgency, diverting from the track of discussion/submission it gets viewed with suspicion whether from an employer or employee point of view. Fundamental rights, such as Natural justice, ought never be overridden in this way in a real democracy
Because I don’t think we have the sort of society where it’s acceptable to tell people ‘your personal hygiene is inadequate, and people don’t like working with you because you smell’ or ‘you rub people up the wrong way and are destroying the current positive dynamics of the team’ even if it’s true.
OldGeorge, how PC of you!
I’m just a big softy, really…
Might be true of you, OG, but the perpetrators of that scheme don’t wear the big softy label with ease, so I would need another reason why employers can avoid natural justice by not having to justify a dismissal.
There are, of course, perfectly practical ways to offer advice to people as to job shortcomings- before needing to fire someone.
Are you saying that people should be sacked because of the employer’s sensibilities? Diddums might not know how to tell someone they smell or that they’re a pain in the arse?
Never been a problem with my employers.
Sorry that no-one has any comment about the fact that over 100 workers have been without pay for getting on five weeks, that the community is feeding and supporting them and other workers around New Zealand have been digging deep to help them, and will probably need to do so for some time to come?
How about a donation Old George and Co?
I think I’ll leave that for those who actually support those protesting. If they’re so far up on the moral high ground there’s bound to be lots of them…
@OldGeorge – they are not protesting – they are locked out. Or don’t you know the difference (or care?)
As I understand it the company has offered them work, albeit on different pay and conditions from previously.
They have chosen not to take up this offer, so the company has opted not to let them continue working under the old pay and conditions.
However you care to describe it, it sounds like a protest to me.
Lockout is actually a legally defined term not a term of art.
An employer’s decision to bar unionized employees entry to the workplace until such time as they accept to work on the employer’s terms and conditions or based on a lapsed collective bargaining agreement.
In Agostini v State, the New York Court of Claims adopted these words:
“an (employer’s) act of locking out; refusal of an employer to furnish work to employees, used as a means of coercion.”
The Alberta Labour Relations Code defines the term as follows:
“Lockout includes the closing of a place of employment by an employer, the suspension of work by an employer, or a refusal by an employer to continue to employ employees, for the purpose of compelling the employer’s employees, or to aid another employer in compelling the employees of that employer, to accept terms or conditions of employment.”
In Re 316291 Alberta Ltd., the Alberta Labour Relations Board distinguished the lockout from a strike as follows:
“The strike (is where) employees refuse to attend at the workplace altogether, and the lockout, in which the employer shuts its employees out”
NZ LAW
From
http://www.justice.govt.nz/courts/employment-court/documents/2011-%20NZEmpC%2012%20Unite%20Union%20Inc%20v%20Sky%20City%20Ltd.pdf 2011 – useful and readable case about lockouts.
Section 82 of the Employment Relations Act 2000, which defines a lockout, insofar as is relevant in this case, provides:
82 Meaning of lockout
(1) In this Act, lockout means an act that—
(a) is the act of an employer—
…
(ii) in discontinuing the employment of any employees; or
(iii) in breaking some or all of the employer’s employment agreements; or
(iv) in refusing or failing to engage employees for any work for which the employer usually employs employees; and
(b) is done with a view to compelling employees, or to aid another employer in compelling employees, to—
(i) accept terms of employment; or
(ii) comply with demands made by the employer.
… Section 83, the relevant portion of which reads as follows:
Participation in a strike or lockout is lawful if the strike or lockout—
(a) is not unlawful under section 86; and
(b) relates to bargaining—
(i) for a collective agreement that will bind each of the employees concerned;
Section 85 provides that lawful participation in a lockout does not give rise to the proceedings for a grant of an injunction or for breach of an employment agreement (ss 85(1)(b) and 85(1)(c)(i)). Section 86 provides that participation in a lockout is unlawful if it occurs in certain circumstances including those now set out:
86 Unlawful strikes or lockouts
(1) Participation in a strike or lockout is unlawful if the strike or lockout—
…
(c) relates to a personal grievance; or
(d) relates to a dispute; Section 87 provides that where there is a strike the employer may suspend the employment of an employee who is a party to the strike in certain circumstances. Section 96 deals with an employee‟s liability for wages during a lockout, which insofar as it is relevant in the present case, provides:
96 Employer not liable for wages during lockout
(1) Where any employees are locked out by their employer, those employees are not entitled to any remuneration by way of salary, wages, allowances, or other emoluments in respect of the period of the lockout, unless the employer’s participation in the lockout is unlawful.
I’m sure that there are a great number of legal concepts and definitions which make distinctions not recognised by ordinary people.
When asked ‘for a donation’ (which is what Darien did) I’ll continue to use my own definition of the situation rather than a legalistic one.
And as far as I’m concerned, my understanding is that each of the protesters could be working tomorrow if they chose to accept the terms and conditions offered by the company.
OG my point was that thi s is an issue of whether a company or employees are breaking the law. You’ve usually posted about accepting consequences for own actions. IF an employer is breaking the law is that ok, if you agree with their stance? Do you have a line you draw for other crimes or illegal behaviour too?