Employment Relations Amendment Bill

on behalf of the Minister of Labour: I move, That the Employment Relations Amendment Bill be now read a second time. I thank the members of the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee, and particularly its chair, David Bennett, for their thorough consideration of this bill. This bill implements the Government’s policies aimed at increasing flexibility and fairness in our employment relations framework. The select committee has recommended that the bill proceed with a number of amendments, and I agree with the changes proposed, some of which I will touch on today.

The bill changes the duty of good faith so that it no longer requires parties to conclude a collective agreement. The Employment Relations Authority may declare whether collective bargaining has concluded. The aim is to reduce overly protracted bargaining and give some certainty and balance to the collective bargaining framework. The United Future leader, Peter Dunne, expressed concern that the bill as amended could embolden employers or employees to merely go through the motions of negotiation, then walk away from collective bargaining simply because they oppose or object to the direction negotiations are going or to being party to a collective agreement. They could then call in the Employment Relations Authority to declare the end to bargaining. He therefore wanted the inclusion of stronger provisions in the bill to enable the authority to be fully satisfied that parties engaged in collective bargaining had done so in good faith.

To address this concern about possible surface bargaining, I propose to introduce an amendment to the bill, a new section 50KA, so that the authority cannot declare bargaining concluded if parties have not complied with the duty of good faith. Where the authority is precluded from making a declaration or determination under this section, however, the authority can issue orders, recommendations, or directions to bargaining parties who have failed to observe good faith about what steps ought to or must be taken to rectify the failure. I thank the Hon Peter Dunne for his intervention and believe that this amendment makes for a more balanced and resilient piece of legislation.

The Transport and Industrial Relations Committee has also recommended other technical changes in relation to collective bargaining to improve the workability of the law. The bill exempts employers and their associated persons who have 19 or fewer employees from the requirement to take on those employees who are eligible to transfer to a new employer under Part 6A of the Employment Relations Act. Part 6A requires that eligible employees be allowed to transfer to a new employer following a restructure. This exemption responds to the review of Part 6A, which found that small to medium sized businesses have difficulty absorbing the financial risk associated with such transfers. I acknowledge the concerns of some submitters regarding this part of the Act.

The committee carefully considered the provision and weighed up the diverse views on the issue to find an appropriate balance. It has recommended—and I agree—that the bill be amended to alter the definition of “associated person” to exclude a franchiser where the franchisee bids for and manages the contract independently of the franchiser. That means that small to medium sized franchisees that operate with a high degree of independence from the franchiser, and therefore share characteristics of small to medium sized enterprises in many respects, are able to access the exemption.

The bill also clarifies that any failure of an outgoing employer to fulfil their obligations in relation to employees who are eligible to transfer to a new employer after a restructure under Part 6A will not affect an employee’s entitlement to transfer to the new employer or obligations that the new employer has.

The committee has also recommended changes that ensure that in each type of restructuring situation employers wanting to give a warranty as an exempt employer can obtain sufficient information about the identity and contact details of the person they need to give the warranty to. The bill relaxes the current overprescriptive and often unworkable provisions in the Act around rest and meal breaks, to ensure that the requirements are practical and can be complied with in all workplaces. Some submitters were concerned that the changes would have a negative impact on health and safety. The committee has considered these issues carefully and has noted that the bill does not override any requirements for breaks under other legislation, notably the Health and Safety in Employment Act. I agree that the bill continues to protect the rights of employees while improving the workability of the law.

The bill gives employers the ability to respond to partial strikes with specified pay deductions. This gives employers an additional, much more proportionate, choice when responding to partial strikes than simply locking out or suspending workers. A range of submitters requested greater certainty in the bill as to what constitutes a partial strike. The committee has recommended improving the clarity of the definition, and I support this change.

The bill introduces requirements on the nature and timing of determinations by the Employment Relations Authority to help improve the timeliness of its decisions. The bill as introduced required the authority to give an oral determination or an oral indication of its preliminary findings at the conclusion of an investigation meeting. The authority would then be required to record oral determinations in writing, and in the case of oral indications provide written determinations within 3 months unless there were exceptional circumstances. Some submitters were concerned that the changes could lead the authority to making hasty decisions. The committee has suggested several enhancements that should allay these fears, including allowing for reserve determinations and amending and clarifying time frames and content for different types of determinations.

The bill amends the requirement for an employer to provide an employee with relevant information if a decision were being made that might affect their continued employment. The balance between providing natural justice and recognising that some situations require particular sensitivity has been improved by the committee recommendations. The bill now provides that an employer is not required to allow access to confidential information regarding individuals other than the employee concerned, if it would result in an unwarranted disclosure of information about another individual.

The committee has also recommended amending the bill so that it no longer provides a basis for employers to withhold certain evaluative and opinion material from the employees concerned. In addition, the committee has recommended that an employer cannot withhold information just because it is in a document that also contains confidential information.

The changes recommended by the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee reflect a balanced and careful consideration of the wide range of comments received from submitters on this bill. Flexible and balanced employment relations legislation is essential for business to grow while ensuring that protections for workers are retained. I believe that this bill, with the improvements recommended by the committee, strikes this balance. I commend this bill to the House.

The Employment Relations Amendment Bill is a nasty, insidious document—yet another repeat of the nasty, insidious strategy that this National Government has for working New Zealanders. That is what it is and that was a shocking address, a shocking speech, delivered by the Hon Jo Goodhew on behalf of the Minister of Labour, on a matter that affects hundreds of thousands of working people every day. Far from being balanced, there could not be a more unbalanced, a more radical change to our employment laws and our workplace code than what is in this bill. It is just another continuation of the nasty rubbish that this Government insists on serving up to hard-working New Zealanders.

There were 13,679 submissions and more than 160 oral submissions, and most of them—the vast majority—were totally and deeply opposed to what is in this bill. The advice from the officials, from the Civil Service, is this: “the proposed options are likely to increase choice and reduce compliance costs for some employers. They will reduce choice for unions and employees, and may expose New Zealand to critical international scrutiny over its international labour obligations.”

This National Government does not care about the long and enduring obligations that this country has stuck with when it comes to the treatment of workers in this country. It just does not care. The evidence is clear cut. It is getting harder and harder for workers in New Zealand workplaces today to get their voice heard, whether it is for wages, whether it is for other issues that affect them in the workplace, even whether it is for health and safety—and I will come back to that in a minute.

Before looking at what this bill actually does, which is nothing like what the Minister reintroducing the bill says it does, let us actually look at the problem that we are trying to fix in this country. Let us look at the labour market problem in this country: wages. It is wages and incomes. The wages of the bottom half of the workforce in New Zealand have stayed the same in real terms or gone backwards over the last 20 years—the last 20 years. The pay rates of 50 percent of New Zealand workers have stayed the same in real terms or gone backwards over the last 20 years.

What about productivity improvements? It will be news to this Government because its members mislead this House all the time about them, but the reality is that productivity in this country has improved—gradually and incrementally, but it has improved—every year for the last 20 years. It has improved by nearly 50 percent in the last 20 years in this country. Real wages, on average, have moved barely 14 percent. If the average wage in this country had actually matched productivity improvements, which is the very thing that Business New Zealand and its acolytes in the National Party call for, the average hourly rate in this country would be between $7 and $8 a hour better than it is now. The truth is that wages in this country have not been keeping pace with productivity, as Business New Zealand keeps on claiming they should do.

What is the other fact here? It is that 400,000 workers in this country, nearly one-fifth of the workforce, are dependent on tax credits because their earned income is not enough to make ends meet—400,000 people are dependent on tax credits because their wages do not allow them to make ends meet. That is a shameful statistic, and that is something this House ought to be embarrassed about. At the very least that ought to prompt this Government to do something meaningful about it—to do something meaningful about wages and incomes.

The problem in the labour market in this country today is wages and incomes. They are too low, they do not keep pace, and far too many New Zealand workers are being ripped off. We have had economic growth in this country and we have had productivity improvement, so affording better wages is not the issue in this country—affording better wages is not the issue. For the National Government the issue is about screwing more out of workers and giving that to its rich mates in corporate New Zealand. That is what it wants to achieve and that is why this bill is drafted the way that it is.

Wages and incomes have been going backwards for far too many for far too long. What would a solution to this particular problem look like? Well, first of all, we would want mechanisms to improve bargaining so that workers would not be fearful about approaching their employers to say: “You know what? I’ve been here a couple of years. I’m doing a pretty good job. The manager seems pretty happy with me—can I get a pay increase?”. Or here is something else: why do we not protect the freedom of choice to belong to a union so that people do not have their employers standing over them saying: “You go anywhere near the union, you’re in trouble.”? That is what happens. Why do we not have mechanisms to improve wage bargaining, and collective bargaining at that? Why do we not give a greater voice to working people and protect freedom of association? Why do we not respect the internationally recognised right to strike? This Government with this bill wants to punish people for standing on their digs, standing up to bad employers, and taking industrial action, including when that industrial action does not lead to any loss of production or revenue or income at all. That is how nasty and vicious this National Government has become when it comes to New Zealand workers.

This bill will fix no problem that I can see in the labour market. It panders and cuddles up to the worst employers in this country—the donors to the National Party who keep saying to their MP mates in the National Party: “Do something. Give us a bit more. Squeeze more blood out of the worker stone so it’s better for us.” This bill sets up a number of things, such as the peremptory opt-out by employers from multi-employer collective bargaining. Never mind that workers have to go through various hoops to get their employer round the table with others in their industry to get some commonality, some baseline conditions in their industry; never mind that workers have to vote on that; and never mind that workers choose to have that. This Government says that whatever employers want, employers should get. It is not about mutual relationships. It is not about mutual respect in relationships. It is about whatever the boss wants.

Then we have employers going to the Employment Relations Authority to get a declaration that bargaining is at an end. I have to say that the sole redeeming feature of the Minister’s statement in the House just now is that the Government has accepted—after protestations at the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee, I might add, were rebuffed by the Government, and, indeed, personal approaches to the Minister were rebuffed. It is pleasing to see that the Government has recognised that a fundamental condition to the Employment Relations Authority’s interfering in bargaining is that the applicant to the declaration has to at least have met their good- faith requirements. That is part of the employment jurisdiction that we have had for over 100 years in this country; it is called the equity and good conscience jurisdiction, and it comes from the equitable principle that whoever comes to equity comes with clean hands. You could not possibly have an employer rocking up to the Employment Relations Authority demanding a declaration that bargaining is at an end, with no requirement that they have acted in good faith all the way through. I have to say that that is the only redeeming feature in the statement given in the House this afternoon.

Then there is the removal of the 30-day rule, amongst other things in the bill. When unions negotiate a collective agreement, workers in a workplace come together and get the best deal from their employer. They do not do it just for themselves; they do it for every generation of workers that follows and the new workers who start. That will now be undermined. The freedom of choice the workers exercise to join together and negotiate collectively with their employer can now be undermined by that new employee provision. It is all about driving down wages, as if somehow the wages in this country are a problem. It does not help, of course, when you have got a Minister of Finance and others who go abroad boasting to other countries, and big business in those countries, about how low our wages are and that being, therefore, a reason to relocate here.

This bill is all about saying to workers: “Leave your brains at the gate. Your thoughts aren’t welcome here. Your voice has no place in this workplace.” This bill is all about saying: “Leave your spirit and your motivation at home because we don’t want that at work.” It is about command and control—command and control of the employer, because that is all this National Government understands. It does not understand modern workplace relationships. It does not understand genuinely mutually respectful workplace relationships. This Government, like this bill, is embarrassingly out of date.

Here is the challenge we have in this country. It is to create high-quality workplace relationships and high-quality workplaces, with high-quality businesses that respect workers’ rights, that respect freedom of association, and that are respectful of the place of workers and their thoughts and ideas when it comes to decision making. The challenge is to have high-performance workplaces managed well with good-quality managers. Everything in this bill, like every piece of employment legislation passed by this Government, incentivises bad managers and poor management.

The one thing we need is workers in this country being properly and fairly paid. This bill will do the opposite. That is why we are opposed to it totally and utterly, and we will object strenuously every step of the way.

I just wanted to follow on from that speech. Andrew Little is a good member of our Transport and Industrial Relations Committee, but that was a very disappointing speech because rather than focus on the Employment Relations Amendment Bill, he talked about the wider context of wages and how employees are not valued. That is simply rubbish. Wages are increasing in New Zealand at this time, employees are valued, and we see a future in which we can have a modern environment that is dominated not by what Andrew Little talked about—the methodology that is dominated by union movement—but by a methodology where companies can grow and provide more jobs and opportunities for people. That is the future of work in New Zealand. It is an environment where there is listening between the worker and the employer, and that does happen. That is happening in New Zealand.

The Labour Party wants to go back to some model where it is not actually the worker who has control and it is not actually the union that has control; it is the Labour Party that has control. That is what it really wants. There is a difference between giving workers rights and having the Labour Party in this room say what workers’ rights should be.

💬 Hon Members: Ha, ha!

They can laugh now because I have hit a nerve, but that is the reality of the Labour Party. It does not want to have fair and equal bargaining or an open environment for workers; it wants to have a place where it controls, it dictates, and it sets the tempo of that environment. It is a shame to see someone like Andrew Little do that in this House. Thank you.

Labour is strongly opposing the Employment Relations Amendment Bill. That was a most disappointing speech from the chair of the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee, David Bennett, who sat and listened to something like 170 oral submissions; who travelled around the country, to Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch, and Palmerston North; and who had as evidence the people who came before the select committee. They had no impact on that member at all. They certainly had an impact on the Labour members of the select committee. I will always remember Christchurch. We went to Christchurch, and I have never seen anything like it in a select committee hearing. Workers came before the select committee showing support for each other. They came waving their banners to show they were opposed to this bill.

💬 Jacqui Dean: Back to the 1970s.

They came forward and told their stories, and I have to tell that member over there who is shouting out that they cried.

💬 Iain Lees-Galloway: It was Jacqui Dean.

Jacqui Dean. Shame on her, because they cried. They cried about this bill. What they told the select committee was that this is the last straw for them. They have been through the earthquakes. We had workers from a range of occupations, from the lowest paid to quite professional nurses and front-line response workers, and a whole range of other workers who came forward. They talked about how, after the earthquakes, they went back to work to help other people. The cleaners at Hillmorton Hospital went back to work and helped clean up the mess, helped the people who were coming into that hospital, and helped their workmates who were suffering because their houses had been trashed.

Those workers, from all walks of life, have not been listened to by this Government. It is extremely disappointing because I asked the Minister of Labour, Simon Bridges, late last year whether he would listen to the submissions, and particularly to the submissions around Part 6A, which is the provision that he is weakening, thanks to his friends from CrestClean, who sent the media unit a stupid mug last week. Actually, what it says is to not go ahead with the amendments. Well, we agree with CrestClean on that. But, however, it wants to be able to make sure that it does not have to employ vulnerable workers or transfer them from one job to another.

Simon Bridges told me in answer to the question I asked him about the workers at Hillmorton Hospital, who I said, quite truthfully, were sick with worry about the changes to Part 6A of the Employment Relations Act because they feared they could lose their jobs—and that would be the last straw after the earthquakes they have suffered—that “In all seriousness, they can be confident that I am listening and taking this very seriously.” Well, did he? Have the amendments to Part 6A changed? No, they have not changed, except to make another group of employers exempt as well—that is, franchisees who are not the parent company. So he has actually made it weaker than it was before it went to the select committee.

The other person whom I will never forget, who came before the select committee, was a home-care worker called Julie Reason. She was fantastic. She told the select committee that she earns between $14.10 and $15.86 an hour, depending on the nature of the work. Ninety percent of her work is at the lowest rate of $14.10 an hour—well, lucky her; she will have gone up to $14.25 an hour with the miserable increase in the minimum wage! She said: “I drive between my clients’ homes and then help them shower or dress or do their shopping or housework. My work is deemed to be casual, so I do not have guaranteed hours. The idea is that we build up a pool of regular clients and try to fill in the gaps in the day as best we can. Extra assignments are offered via group texts sent out to everyone and are grabbed on a sort of ‘first come, first served basis’. I am not reimbursed for my petrol, my travel time, or my vehicle wear and tear. Roughly 10 to 15 percent of my income goes on work-related petrol. Our terms have not always been this generous. It is only recently that a freephone number has been provided so that we do not have to pay for our own work-related calls and texts, and it used to be that if a support worker like me arrived at a scheduled appointment and could not actually do the work because the client was not there, they would not be paid at all.”

This Julie Reason told the select committee that it was union pressure and union collective bargaining that made the tiniest bit of difference for her and her job. What was really interesting about what Julie told us was about meals and rest breaks. Do Julie Reason and other home-care workers like her get a tea break? They are not allowed to sit down with their clients when they visit a home and have a cup of tea with them, because that would be breaching some kind of protocol, so she never gets a paid tea break, even though the legislation provides for it. The Government is, unfortunately, proposing to weaken the legislation. Julie Reason never gets a paid tea break. She has to pay for her own tea while she is on the road driving, if she is lucky, to the next client. She told the select committee: “It is hard enough doing the work I do without having the Government actively trying to undermine the bargaining position of my union and the union representing me. Why would a Government want to make it even harder for me to earn a fair wage?”.

I will never forget the courage of Julie Reason and the workers like her who told their stories to the select committee and who were ignored. They have been ignored, because apart from minor technical changes, this bill is as bad as it was when it went to the select committee.

There were 13,679 submissions—13,679 submissions. Workers put a lot of effort into making sure they got their submissions through. There were complaints about the fact that the select committee did not hear enough submissions, and, in fact, there was a people’s submission process organised by the Council of Trade Unions so that people could have their voices heard throughout the small towns and regions throughout our country. But, of course, it has all gone for nothing, because this Government does not take workers seriously. It does not believe that it is a struggle for some people and that our system that we already have of collective bargaining, our system under the Employment Relations Act—which this Government has weakened through pieces of legislation after legislation since 2008—does not work for them.

What this bill will do is make it even harder for those people, those workers on the margin like the cleaners in this place who earn just on the minimum wage, of whom Tau Henare said: “Oh, if they don’t like it, they should get another job.” Remember that? He had to apologise for it, but how disgraceful was that? How disgraceful to have a member of Parliament on a huge salary telling the workers in this place who clean his office that if they do not like it, they should get another job. He should be ashamed, and I know he was, actually. But that is the attitude of the National Party.

Another little part of this bill—well, it is quite a big part of the bill—is the stupidity around the ability of employers to decide that they are not going to conclude bargaining. What that means is that workers will go to bargaining, and the employer can come up with an excuse to drag it out and eventually apply to the Employment Relations Authority to say that bargaining has ended. Workers in that situation immediately lose their collective agreement. They immediately go on to individual contracts, and, what is more, they cannot strike for a period of 60 days—in fact, it is 90 days by the time they reinitiate. So we have a strike ban on workers who want to get a collective agreement. Then we have this petty thing that if they decide in their workplace—like Julie Reason, the home-care worker, might decide she does not want to go on strike, because of those clients whom she looks after, but maybe she will not take them shopping. That would be deemed a partial strike and her employer could fine her 10 percent. So we have now got stupid, pitiful, and mean provisions in this legislation that are going to make it really hard for everybody.

Labour is deeply opposed to this bill. It is not necessary—it is not. It builds on the bad record of this Government and the way that it treats workers. It will not survive a change of Government. In fact, it may not even get through by the election—

💬 Mike Sabin: That’s right. You won’t have to worry about it, because there won’t be a change in Government. Don’t panic, Darien.

Mike Sabin is saying that there is not going to be change of Government. Well, I will tell you what: bringing this bill to the House is the best thing you could have done to mobilise the workers of this country against that Government.

It is a great shame that the Employment Relations Amendment Bill has returned to the House for its second reading. I am rising to take a call for the Greens on it. This piece of legislation does nothing for the economy, does nothing for job creation, does nothing to address inequality in Aotearoa, and does nothing to lift the 280,000 children living in poverty in this country out of poverty. This bill does nothing to fix that.

This bill amends the Employment Relations Act of 2000. That Act states that its original aim was to promote collective bargaining, which we all know—certainly on this side of the House—is one of the requirements of the International Labour Organization’s clauses that we have endorsed. This bill states that its raison d’être, its reason for being, is that it “implements Government policy”—and I am quoting here—“that is aimed at creating an employment relations framework that increases flexibility and choice, ensures a balance of fairness for employers and employees, and reduces compliance costs, … It also reduces unnecessary regulation. The Bill will help create an environment where employers can grow their business …”. From my point of view, that does not seem very balanced at all. It feels like the aims of this bill, as stated like that, tilt the balance of power in favour of the employer, and that does nothing to increase jobs, improve the economy, increase wages—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): I am sorry to interrupt the honourable member. The time has come for me to leave the Chair for the dinner break.

Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.

When I was interrupted, I was talking about balance and fairness. Before I get into my speech, I just want to take a moment to acknowledge the passing of Viv Walker, who was a stalwart of the Wellington union movement and a good feminist. It was her funeral tonight. She strongly believed in fairness, and her funeral was actually a fund-raiser for the pay equity campaign.

We believe that a balanced approach means that workers’ rights are protected, that managers manage well, and that businesses thrive from a cooperative work environment. There are examples of this, and we had submissions from members of the Dairy Workers Union, who are highly unionised, and who have a thriving relationship with their employer and excellent productivity as a result. They are well unionised and they bargain collectively.

It is a false economy to legislate like this. Over 400,000 people are receiving Working for Families. That means that the taxpayer is subsidising employers to keep wages low. For low-paid workers—like, for example, the cleaners who clean this House, who are unionised and who earn $14.10 an hour—the costs of that low pay are externalised. That means that the taxpayer pays the social costs that come with poverty wages. When we lift wages, through good union rights and collective bargaining, all of us are better off. So how do workers improve their wages? They do it through collective bargaining and through the ability to organise and join a union. This bill removes the duty to conclude bargaining. It cuts through any attempt that workers can make to improve their lot. It removes the right of workers to be included in a multi-employer collective if the employer does not want to be part of it. It allows employers to refuse to bargain. Basically, it undermines all the principles of good faith that are in the existing legislation.

It further harms working conditions by allowing for the divide and rule of workers by employers. So where a workplace currently has a collective employment agreement, this bill will remove the right of new employees to be on that collective agreement for the first 30 days. So it takes us back to 1991 and the Employment Contracts Act, where the focus was on individual bargaining. But there is little choice in bargaining your wages and conditions, and there is little power and very little balance in the employment relationship when you want the job, and when there are thousands of other workers who are unemployed who will take less than you to get that job. When you combine that with the 90-day trial provisions this Government introduced, which allow employers to sack workers for no reason whatsoever before 90 days, we have a situation where the balance is tipped in favour of the employer, and the employee has very little say whatsoever. That very thing undermines the ability of other workers to get decent pay and conditions, because it pulls everybody’s wages down.

We received written submissions from over 12,000 union members. All of them were really concerned about the clawbacks in this bill that will erode their wages and conditions. As a worker, the only way to redress the imbalance in the employment relationship—and so much employment law actually shows that the relationship is not balanced—is through collective bargaining and collective action, and, in a worst-case scenario, when things go wrong, through industrial action. This bill will actually escalate industrial action by introducing penalties on workers if they are participating in partial strikes. That is their last-ditch weapon of negotiation. If they participate in a partial strike, they will be penalised. What that means—and we heard this from submitters—is that they will say: “Oh, well—might as well go the whole hog and go on strike.” So it is actually conducive to poor employment relationships.

I have to say that a lot of the provisions in this legislation use a sledgehammer to crack a nut. There have been only around a dozen cases of industrial action or industrial unrest in the last few years. Two major cases have been Talley’s, in the meat sector, and the Ports of Auckland. Workers faced huge clawbacks from their employers and casualisation there, and it was the employer that took militant industrial action by locking workers out.

This bill is mean-spirited—the removal of tea breaks, for heaven’s sake. It totally undermines any of the health and safety legislation that was just recently introduced to the House, last week. Having a tea break is a time for a worker to rest, and they will be under pressure—you can bet your boots they will be under pressure—to sell it in exchange for, I do not know, a lolly.

The bill also removes the only provision that we have had in law, in Part 6A of the Employment Relations Act—and that was thanks to the Labour Government, and, frankly, the work of Darien Fenton from the Labour Party—that was protection for vulnerable workers. It was the only way they could be sure of security of work if a current contractor—say, a cleaning contractor or laundry contractor—was undercut by another. These workers are not in a strong position to be able to take industrial action and to be totally militant. This provision was their only protection. This Government has eroded it to the detriment of those workers.

We have heard a lot about productivity and how this bill increases productivity, but what we actually know is that productivity has increased over the last 10 years, while wages have stagnated. Our rock star economy is not working for the low paid. This legislation cements inequality. The provisions in this bill will ensure that another generation of workers is condemned to low wages and poor conditions. This legislation is a breach of our international human rights obligations. We want good lives and fair futures for all workers in Aotearoa New Zealand. This bill will not deliver that.

The member who just resumed her seat, Denise Roche, was talking about lifting wages. Her answer to lifting wages was actually more unionisation and collective bargaining. I do not think so. Lifting wages is about productivity. Hello! You know, in the world of the Greens this is all you need to do: you just need to get a bit of the old union strong-arming or to lift the minimum wage with a bit of legislation, and employers can just pay higher wages forthwith. Well, that is not actually how the real world works. What a business relies on in terms of its employees and raising wages for employees is the fact that they produce a product and they do it efficiently—OK? Is that not right? So if the Greens are so concerned about lifting wages, then I would expect that they should be voting for the bills in this Parliament that this Government is passing that are all about the economy and productivity. But that is right—the Greens do not vote for those bills, because they are not actually about lifting productivity. They are actually about lifting the presence of the unions, or possibly that is their friends over there on the other side of the House in the Labour Party.

Andrew Williams spoke earlier, and anyone tuning in to that speech would think they had gone back about 60 years or so to the wharf strikes, because the sort of rhetoric that was coming out of his mouth was archaic. It has had its day and it is gone. Part of the noise that comes out of there—admittedly they have got to do a bit of payback to their union friends who will be tuning in and watching the debate, so there is a bit of payback going on there—[Interruption] Oh, that has got them excited. That has got them excited. Part of it is that I think the unions and people like Andrew Williams and co. are worried about the fact that, actually, the flexibility that is introduced—

💬 Barbara Stewart: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Andrew Williams did not speak on this bill. It was Andrew Little.

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Will you correct that?

Sorry, Mr Deputy Speaker, a Freudian slip. Yes, Andrew Little—Andrew Little. Sorry, Barbara—yes, Andrew Williams. Andrew Williams is not the person we are talking about.

💬 Dr Cam Calder: He would have spoken well, though.

Yes, he would have. It is Andrew Little. Andrew Little talked as though we had gone back a couple of generations, in his thinking. Actually, anyone listening to that speech would think that employers are there to do nothing else other than to exploit employees. It is just an absolute load of rubbish. It is as much a load of rubbish as Labour members suggesting that there is a manufacturing crisis out there. We all know that that is not the case. They are not banging on about that any more, are they? Oh, no. They will be saying: “Let’s take dairying out of that equation. Let’s just magic up some different figures because then, actually, what we’re saying is plausible.” Well, actually, nothing of what they are saying is plausible.

I actually think that what the Employment Relations Amendment Bill recognises is that there is a reciprocal relationship between the employer and the employee, and that relationship is centred on the need for one another to work in a collaborative and respectful manner in a fashion that improves productivity, because when productivity is improved, everyone is actually a winner. That is what this bill provides for. And I do not know why Labour members are so scared of that. Are they so scared of that because that means that they will not have as much control in the workplace any more? As the Greens seem to suggest, if you want to lift wages, it is all about collective bargaining. Collective bargaining and discussions of that nature will always have a place, but do not ever forget that raising wages is about raising productivity. It is about an economy, and it is about a Government that actually gets what it takes to grow the economy. It is an excellent bill and I look forward to seeing workplaces embrace it.

I rise on behalf of New Zealand First to speak on the Employment Relations Amendment Bill. On this side of the House we had hoped that because the bill had been sitting on the Order Paper for quite some time, the Government would just let it sit there, just like it has let so many others fade into the background. This bill affects thousands and thousands of workers negatively right across New Zealand. There are too many changes that, basically, affect workers’ rights.

It is not a popular bill. In fact, there was no call by employers or employees for any changes to the current situation. So why we have this bill is quite a mystery. We know that by far the biggest number of submissions—and we received over 13,000 of them—were opposed to this bill. We heard some heart-rending stories, and, again, those people were opposed to the bill. It is not a popular bill.

With this Government it is unfortunate that we have seen numerous pieces of legislation slowly but surely pursuing an anti-worker agenda. We in New Zealand First believe that this bill will negatively undermine wage-fixing principles under New Zealand law and create conflict between employees and employers. We must tell the National Government that there is a very fine balance between, on the one hand, assuring and affirming the rights of the workers, and, on the other hand, allowing enough worker flexibility so as to not hinder any business’s production, profitability, and productivity, which we firmly believe in. New Zealand First definitely understands that and we believe too that the New Zealand public largely recognise that. There is always a trade-off. There is a balance between the two extremes. Kiwi owners and Kiwi workers and business owners know that. They are all, more or less, in the centre. They are very aware that to go to either end of the spectrum is to invite the prospects of worker strikes or businesses failing.

In New Zealand First we believe that employers need flexible, dedicated staff and that employees need appropriate conditions and remuneration. Safety of workers is absolutely paramount—we have had bills in the House on this particular issue—and, of course, scheduled breaks assist with that. This bill, unfortunately, changes the existing rule for employees’ entitlements for rest and meal breaks. Saying that these should be more flexible and negotiable and should be able to be paid out to workers is going to have a negative effect on safety and workers’ output.

The removal of the 30-day rule will seriously undermine collective bargaining. Employers will now be able to offer different terms and conditions to new employees, despite agreements reached with unions for that to not happen. The bill is going to remove the protection new employees have had from being taken on at lower pay rates or on inferior terms and conditions. The employment relationship is not a level playing field. We have already seen numerous businesses and organisations come out against this particular legislation. They want to protect their brands by protecting the rights of their workers against the unnecessary legislation that this Government is proposing. Employment relations must be collaborative.

The duty to conclude collective bargaining has actually been removed from this particular bill. Working to rule can actually be considered a partial strike. There is a fine balance between assuring and affirming the rights of workers and allowing sufficient flexibility so as to not hinder production or productivity. This bill before the House today is basically a kick in the head for hard-working New Zealanders, but there is a bit more to it than that. It is seeking to apply a set of rules for which there is already a great deal of flexibility, and it really goes to show just how out of touch this bill is with the reality of the workplace and with owners of small to medium sized businesses up and down the country.

The bottom line is that small-business owners have understandings with employees. Café owners, retailers, electricians—they all expect that their workers will go the extra mile when they are faced with a deadline, and staff, by and large, are obliging. They need to work. They know how hard it is to actually find a job in today’s environment. Unfortunately, this bill is not about bettering business. It is definitely not. Once again, this Government is attempting to pass legislation for a small problem that does not exist in reality. Once again, it has misunderstood working relationships in small businesses and companies, and, once again, it is pursuing an anti-worker agenda, when most businesses seem content with the status quo.

For these reasons, New Zealand First is pleased to be voting against this bill.

It gives me a slight amount of pleasure to rise and talk on this bill, the Employment Relations Amendment Bill. The purpose of this bill—

💬 Barbara Stewart: It’s a terrible bill.

Barbara, it has a lot of good points to it. It amends the Employment Relations Act 2000 in relation to collective bargaining, flexible working arrangements, good-faith bargaining, rest breaks, meal break provisions, and the Employment Relations Authority. What do we expect to have as a result of these changes? Well, we expect faster resolution of disputes through changes to the processes of the employment relations—

💬 Barbara Stewart: You want to increase productivity.

What can be wrong with that, Barbara? What can be wrong with that? Nothing. We also expect that the extension of the flexible working arrangements means that any employee, not just caregivers, can ask for flexible work. Also, employees will be able to ask for flexible working arrangements from the start of their employment. I just picked the eyes out of a couple of the positive things of this bill. I will restrain myself from any further comment and commend the bill to the House.

Well, that speech by Dr Cam Calder was a rather pitiful attempt from across the other side of House on such a major piece of legislation. I intend to take my full 10 minutes because this legislation is hugely significant. This Employment Relations Amendment Bill does a number of things, and I just want to outline them for people who are listening. We have got a Government that is saying that this bill makes minor or technical changes to the Employment Relations Act. Nothing could be further from the truth. This bill will actually undermine the wages and conditions of all New Zealanders. This bill works against the key objectives of the Act it seeks to amend in terms of undermining our commitments to working New Zealanders and our international commitments to things like collective bargaining. The main changes focus on collective bargaining and include removing the duty to conclude a collective agreement, and allowing employers to opt out of multi-employer collective bargaining, which is where we operate across more than one workplace. It has a strike tax to try to make it more difficult for workers when they are trying to settle a collective agreement and they use the ultimate tool that they have to do that. It will make it more difficult. It removes basic entitlements to meal and rest breaks. For people listening to this, I ask you whether that sounds like minor or technical changes. I do not think so. I think that this is a Government that is very good at spin. It is very good at just repeating the same messages. Whether or not they are actually accurate is by the by. It is like if you say it often enough, it will become the truth. Well, in this case, I can assure people that that is not the case.

The impact around collective bargaining I want to really unpick, because collective bargaining is the way that working people together negotiate wages and conditions and improve their position to both promote and protect their interests. That is around improving their wages, but it is more than that; it is also around ensuring that they get decent rest breaks, have conditions of employment, get leave improvements, and all of those sorts of things. Most of the things that we would now take for granted in this country, the things that we think are normal, have been obtained through collective bargaining and through unions and employers reaching agreements on fair wages and conditions. This is about an exchange. When a person works for somebody else, they are exchanging their labour. In our value system in this country that exchange is meant to be a fair one. It is meant to be about a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work. That is what I was brought up on—that principle. I know that many other New Zealanders believe in that principle as well.

This bill undermines that principle. Making it harder to negotiate a collective agreement will make it harder to improve wages and conditions. We have seen that. We have seen that in this country. The evidence is actually there. It was not that long ago that wages in this country were fairly level with wages in Australia. Over the last couple of decades that gap has grown and it is continuing to grow now. There is a differential of between 30 and 40 percent in wage rates for the same jobs cross-Tasman. But it is more than that. Inequality in this country is growing. Those on low and middle incomes are doing it tough out there. If you do not believe me, go and talk to your local budget service. Ask them, because what those services tell me—and I talk to a lot of budget services in my consumer rights and standards role—is that among the people they are seeing, there is an increasing proportion of those people who are in paid work, OK? So it is not just people on benefits; it is people who are what you might describe as the working poor—people who are struggling to make ends meet, even though they are working. Their wages do not support their family. That is wrong. That should not be how it is in a rich country like this one.

I want to ask who suffers the most. Well, obviously, we could say that children living in families who are struggling to make ends meet certainly suffer, but when you look at it, it is Māori workers, it is Pasifika workers, and it is women workers who actually are worse off when we fragment collective bargaining and when we say: “Let’s do it individually. Let’s not worry about getting together as a group and trying to improve our wages and conditions.” The net impact is that those people who are less able to negotiate individually will be far worse off. I just want to say here for the record that it is not just people who are covered by collective agreements who benefit from collective bargaining. Collective bargaining has a much wider reach. It does still have an impact across industries where there is collective bargaining in place. As we reduce that, as this bill will do, we will see wages driven further down.

While I am talking about women and women in the paid workforce, I want to acknowledge a woman I worked with and a woman whose funeral I went to today. That is Viv Walker. I worked with Viv at the New Zealand Clerical Workers Union here in Wellington many years ago. Viv was a battler for women workers. At her funeral, it was acknowledged that what she was saying to people up to the day she died was: “We have to get rid of this Government. It is not looking after the interests of most of the people living in this country.” And that is so right. This bill is another example of working people in this country being harmed by the actions of that Government—the Government members across there who sit there and serve the interests of their corporate mates, rather than the interests of low and middle income New Zealanders. I want to acknowledge the work that Viv did. I want to acknowledge her as a strong woman who fought for fairness in the workplace and say that this bill goes against everything that she stood for.

Going back to low wages, I want to say that it means that families cannot necessarily afford to have decent food. Does that matter to anybody across the House—decent food? What becomes a discretionary spend in a household is actually food, because they cannot change what they are paying in rent or mortgage or whatever.

💬 Meka Whaitiri: Power bill.

They cannot change the power bill—that is right—and a whole lot of other things. What becomes discretionary? Families’ food bills. That is shocking. That is just disgusting. It puts stress on families, and that has a whole lot of negative consequences. It could look a whole lot different.

Mike Sabin was talking earlier about productivity. Well, actually, a cost-minimisation approach—a “screw down the labour costs” approach—will not lift productivity in a sustainable way. What will lift productivity are decent workplaces where people are well trained, where they are treated with respect, where there is fairness in the workplace, and where they are paid well. That is what will mean that you have an engaged and productive workforce. There is plenty of evidence to show that when workers are treated in that way and when they have a collective voice, actually they can work with their employer to lift productivity in that workplace. That is the way to lift productivity, not, as Mike Sabin says, a bill like this designed to reduce wages and to treat people as commodities whose labour you screw down the cost of.

I want to urge people to think about what kinds of workplaces we want in this country, because this bill is going in a very, very bad direction. Many New Zealanders will recall what happened under the Employment Contracts Act. This is taking us back. This is back to the future. Recently, we had a Danish delegation visit the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee. It was fascinating, actually. It was a delegation from right across the political spectrum in that country. I happened to have dinner with the delegation and on either side of me I had two MPs from the equivalent of the National Party. And do you know what? They were shocked—they were shocked—at what they heard about employment relations in this country, because in Denmark they actually value collective bargaining. These were National Party equivalents. They value collective bargaining, value the role of unions, and actually want to see workers paid better and treated with respect in the workplace. They were shocked at how big the divide is in this country between what we are saying and what those across the House are saying.

In conclusion, I just want to say to members opposite that this bill takes us backwards. This is not the future that we want for our workplaces in this country. This is not going to create a strong economy that can continue to provide the standard of living that we want for New Zealanders. This is a bill that will hurt many working New Zealanders. We will oppose this bill, and for those listening to this I say there is a real alternative. If you want decent wages, if you want to see workplaces where people are treated fairly, and if you want to see workplaces where there is cooperation and high productivity, then change the Government.

People do not want to change the Government. That is really clear in recent polls. Part of it is that when they listen in to debates like this, they hear only backward talk from an Opposition living well back in the 1970s and the 1960s—if not the 1870s—and arguing the old tired arguments. You see, one of the great things about being a National Party MP and a National Party member is that we believe in people. We believe, optimistically, that people can make the right decisions for themselves and their families. I think that something that the Opposition needs to contemplate within the context of this legislation, the Employment Relations Amendment Bill, is that it continuing to run around declaring every person it decides arbitrarily is a victim or a vulnerable group is actually contributing to that. It continues to keep people down. That is not to say that there are not people, including in the area of workers, who need help, but if you always listen to the Opposition arbitrarily calling people victims, holding them down, telling them that they are no good—[Interruption] And some of them, oh dear, they put their hands on their heads and say: “How could this come from a person on the right wing?”. Well, you know, let us say that a lot of us have actually worked in the community for year after year, in the prisons or with the army or in the streets with the workers. This is not just theory.

When it comes to the dignity of people, you want to give them the positive choices, beginning with the opportunities to work, and to tell them: “We have a belief in you that you can make the right decisions.”, and not make continual excuses—excuses that keep people down. [Interruption] Oh, those members hate it. They hate it. You see, what we have heard from the other side is negativity, pessimism, and no vision, and ultimately it comes down to a desire for control. That is what we are seeing being pushed back here.

The Employment Relations Amendment Bill is introducing that flexibility, taking us back to those original principles in employment relations. Yes, we are looking to say that we do not want absolute set rest breaks in law. We want that flexibility because, you know, right at the moment—to use a quick analogy—we do not want to stop because the MPs’ agreement says that we need a 5-minute break at 8 o’clock. That is not how the real world works. It is the same for the people in the nursing professions, health professions, and so on. We are allowed to have that flexibility.

We have heard a lot of concern around the partial strikes. Well, all we have done around that is make it more clearly defined so that people know where they stand. When it comes to bargaining, we on this side believe that Kiwis can make the right decisions. They can choose to go collectively and deal with the unions, or they can choose—like people like me in the past—to negotiate individually. Do you know why? Because we believe, optimistically, that Kiwis are smart, that Kiwis can make that right decision, and that they will generously make that right decision.

There is a lot of good in this bill. The Transport and Industrial Relations Committee spent a lot of time considering this bill. I certainly acknowledge that there were thousands of submissions. Of course, it is important to say that a lot of those were form submissions and they said the same thing. A lot of them, as my colleague from Coromandel was saying, were from the unions. That does not invalidate them—they absolutely have the right to speak—but, of course, there is a range. They have that ability to talk, and we are very happy for that to happen, but sheer numbers do not necessarily speak to the quality or, I suppose, the range.

💬 Hon Member: Labour’s union mates.

Absolutely, and there is an element of that, of course, around control, and it comes back to why those members do not like this. They want to control. They want to control the way places are run, in the same way that they want to control logging now, I believe. They want to control the electrical market—

💬 Hon Member: Labour knows best.

Absolutely—Labour knows best! Was it a hands-on policy? I have said it once before. They want their hands on your wallet and round your throat. They want to control New Zealanders. We do not believe in that.

Iain Lees-Galloway—split call, 5 minutes.

For those members in the House who were not on the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee—and although I am no longer a member of the select committee, I did sit through a number of the hearings on this legislation, the Employment Relations Amendment Bill—we heard from all sorts of different people. We heard from cleaners on the minimum wage, we heard from aged-care workers, we heard from meatworkers who work in the private sector, we heard from clerical workers, we heard from academics, we heard from education support staff, and we heard from teachers. We heard from people right across the range, the breadth, and the depth of the New Zealand workforce—all sorts of different people—and they all came to tell us the same thing, which is that this legislation is unfair, that it will make their lives tougher at work, and, most important, that this legislation will keep wages down.

I say that we had people from all different parts of society—all the different kinds of people whom the National Party seems to hate—but they had some things in common, as well. Scott Simpson was quite derisory about the fact that, overwhelmingly, the workers who came and spoke to us were union members. There is a reason why the people who came and spoke to us were union members, and that is that being a member of a union gives a worker the opportunity to be organised. It gives workers the opportunity to have their say on legislation like this. So not only by trying to break up unions through this legislation is this Government trying to keep wages down and keep workers down; it is trying to stop ordinary people from engaging in the legislative and democratic process, just like it is trying to stop workers from engaging in their workplace, from having a say in their workplace. I heard the previous National Party member—gosh, I cannot even remember who it was, and I cannot see him now—

💬 Carol Beaumont: Simon O’Connor.

—Simon O’Connor—who said that this was about control. Well, he is absolutely right, because National wants to ensure that workers are under the control of the Government by making sure that they do not have the opportunity to work together not only in their workplaces for better pay and for better conditions at work, and to have a say about their workplace and their industry—because, shock, horror, and this might come as a surprise to National, workers actually have some really good ideas about what is right for their industry and what will make their industry sustainable. In fact, the businesses that have done best through the financial crisis have actually been cooperatives where the workers own the business, because they knew what was best for their businesses and they knew how to get their businesses through difficult times without having to lay people off. That is the power of working together, that is the power of the collective, and National hates it. National hates it because it is working for the 1 percent. It is working for the top end of town—the people who benefit when ordinary people are divided. When ordinary people are divided, that is when National does well.

I say that we should be doing everything we can to give ordinary people the opportunity to work together, and if they work together against that Government, then we will back them even more, because it is only when people have the opportunity to work together that we see wages increase. I heard Mike Sabin talking about productivity. Well, it is absolutely true that as productivity goes up, so should wages, but have we seen that over the last two or three decades? Have we seen it since the Employment Contracts Act? No way. What we have seen is productivity increase and wages being left behind, and that is a direct result of the union-busting Employment Contracts Act, which was introduced in the early 1990s. What we should be doing is trying to recover ground for workers. We should be saying that all those ordinary New Zealanders—the cleaners, the meatworkers, the teachers, the academics, the people who work in engineering firms, the people who work day in, day out, doing the right thing, and trying to get ahead in life—should be given the opportunity to work together to get ahead, but, no, this National Government believes in divide and rule. If we stand united, that is when we will beat this lot.

I am pleased to take a call and express the Green Party’s unequivocal opposition to the Employment Relations Amendment Bill. Earlier, my colleague Denise Roche outlined many of our reasons for opposing this bill, and tonight I would just like to focus primarily on one area in relation to collective bargaining. This bill attracted 13,677 submissions, and from my calculations less than 1 percent supported this bill. But, of course, this Government listens to only 1 percent, so it is really no surprise that the bill has come back with very little amendment.

This bill is another demonstration of whom this Government is serving, and it is certainly not the majority of New Zealanders. This bill is yet another example of the voices of the privileged few overriding the voices of the many. It is yet another demonstration of the inequality that this bill will exacerbate. One of the alleged aims of this bill—so ironically—is to ensure “a balance of fairness for employers and employees,”. George Orwell would be proud of this example of double-speak, because most New Zealanders know, and they know at a very deep, personal level, how out of kilter our system actually is.

Employers are currently holding too much power, and this bill gives them several more fairly hefty tools to add to that imbalance. We can already see the effect of the current imbalance, even without these changes, when we look at how the benefits of the very significant increases in productivity in this country over the last few decades have been channelled into profits and chief executive officer pay packets rather than being shared with the whole team, who actually generated this increased productivity.

We see how out of kilter things are in the struggle of the cleaners in this very Parliament to get a living wage. We see the current imbalance with our rest home workers, currently struggling to get by on just over the minimum wage while they hold people’s lives in their hands every day, doing critical work for our society and our economy. We see how out of balance the system is already when we see that over 40 percent of New Zealanders are defined as living in vulnerable economic circumstances.

We see how out of balance the system is already when we know that two out of five children in poverty in this country are living in working families. This is not a sign of workers having too much power; this is clearly a sign that employers are holding too much power and too much of the benefit of our economic work. In a new Government the Greens will be advocating for more tools for employees to help negotiate fair and safe work conditions and wages.

This bill puts barriers in the way of negotiating fair contracts. It undermines the original intention of the Employments Relations Act, which is to promote collective bargaining. It takes us back to the bad old days of the Employment Contracts Act, which, alongside benefit cuts, was largely responsible for the massive growth of poverty and excessive wealth in this country. We do not support that. It is not serving us as a country.

This bill removes the duty to conclude bargaining and removes the requirement for employers to bargain for multi-employer contracts. Both of these provisions will make it less likely that some employers will want to negotiate collectively. And it removes the requirement in the Employment Relations Act that collective employment agreements be offered to new employees. That is effectively a return to individually based bargaining. It is not going to work for the people who need the most support, who are contributing the most to our economy.

I commend the Employment Relations Amendment Bill to the House.

The question was put that the amendments recommended by the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee by majority be agreed to.