Employment Relations Amendment Bill

I move, That the Employment Relations Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Education and Workforce Committee to consider the bill.

This bill amends the Employment Relations Act 2000 to implement the Government’s 100-day commitments on workplace relations. The proposals are designed to provide greater protection to workers, especially vulnerable workers, and to strengthen the role of collective bargaining in the workplace to ensure fair wages and conditions.

For too long the employment relations system has been failing too many people in New Zealand. Low wages, limited pay increases, and a steady erosion of conditions became prevalent under the previous Government. Recent economic growth, while welcomed, is worryingly supported by increasing volumes of low-paid work, rather than through building the skills, innovation, and productivity that drive a high-wage economy.

The reforms set out in this bill begin to give effect to this Government’s vision for a highly skilled and innovative economy that delivers good jobs, decent conditions, and fair wages for a fair day’s work. An effective employment relations framework balances the need for employers to have flexibility in how they run their businesses while providing safeguards and rights to employees. This bill rolls back a number of the previous Government’s amendments that weakened employees’ rights at work and tipped the balance too far away from the principles of basic fairness.

This bill contains 14 amendments to the Employment Relations Act. They can be grouped into two main categories: the provision of a set of minimum protections for the workforce as a whole, and strengthening the role of collective bargaining and unions in industrial relations. Minimum standards are key to ensuring vulnerable workers are not taken advantage of. We want to ensure that all employers treat workers with decency and respect.

I first want to address the issue of trial periods. It’s fair to say that there are differing views about trial periods, which is why we have worked closely and collaboratively with our partners in Government to reach a position that limits 90-day trial periods to employers with fewer than 20 employees. I’d like to thank the New Zealand First Party and the Green Party for a constructive discussion on these issues.

Research from the Motu Economic and Public Policy Research Trust has indicated that small businesses are the most likely to use trial periods, and we hear from business organisations that employers can be encouraged to hire workers if trial periods are available. However, the same research from Motu suggests that the evidence isn’t strong. What is clear is the need for more research on the impact, both positive and negative, of 90-day trial periods, to complement the Motu research.

I note with some degree of disappointment that the previous Government, essentially, failed to canvass the views of workers on this issue, although, frankly, I’m hardly surprised. As we account for the benefits of 90-day trials to employers, we must also account for their costs to New Zealand workers. They can lead to uncertainty and anxiety for new employees. When employers do dismiss people on trial periods, this may cause significant distress, exacerbated when workers are not provided reasons and where they believe the dismissal is unfair. The lack of a process for workers to challenge the dismissal may worsen their experience. It may mean that some employees face difficulty in finding subsequent employment if they are dismissed under a trial position without knowing the reason. In future, they may have to account for that dismissal, which may harm their future employment prospects.

Employees may also become risk-averse about moving jobs, if it means moving from a job in which they have protections against unjustified dismissal into one where they can be summarily dismissed. That may make the overall labour market less flexible and may also harm employers who have a less engaged and less productive workforce. The position we’ve reached will mean that trials will be limited to employers who appear to be gaining the most relative benefit out of them, while limiting their scope, to ensure that as many workers as possible are protected by the standard provisions around unjustified dismissal.

Small businesses employ approximately 29 percent of employees in New Zealand. The remaining 71 percent of employees will have access to personal grievances for unjustified dismissal, from day one. Larger employers usually have more sophisticated hiring systems in place, they are better placed to manage the risks involved in hiring new employees, and the harm of an underperforming employee is considerably less than that for a small firm.

We do need to learn more about the effects of trial periods. I plan to undertake further research on the scale and use of 90-day trials, the number of dismissals, and its impact on employees and the economy, to ensure that trial periods are working appropriately.

Elsewhere, to enhance minimum standards, the bill restores an employee’s right to a minimum number and duration of set rest and meal breaks. The previous Government took away this right, nickel-and-diming Kiwi workers. We are restoring it. This will give employees enough time to rest, refresh, and eat during working hours and be able to continue to work safely. I recognise that there are limited circumstances where, for safety reasons, it will not be possible to provide breaks in this way. The bill includes a narrow exception for those businesses that provide an essential service, where the continuity of the service is critical to the public interest, and the cost of replacing the employee with a person sufficient to cover the break is unreasonable.

We are also bringing back an employee’s right to request to return to their position as the primary remedy in unjustified dismissal cases, where practical and reasonable. While this is rarely used, it is important to move the starting point for resolving disputes away from payouts so that the real possibility of a return to work is considered as the first option. If the relationship can be saved, this is better for workers and employers. Part 6A of the Employment Relations Act contains an important set of protections for workers in industries with a history of driving down their conditions to rock bottom, where contracts change hands frequently. The rules provide critical protection for vulnerable workers, such as cleaners and caterers, by allowing them to transfer their employment, with the same terms and conditions and entitlements, to an incoming employer when a contract that affects the work they are doing changes hands.

The previous Government introduced an exemption to the Act that meant small to medium sized employers (SMEs) did not have to offer a transfer to existing employees on the same terms and conditions, or at all. This bill proposes to repeal the SME exemption, to restore the right for employees to transfer on the same terms and conditions. Together, these proposals will make New Zealand workplaces fairer and safer.

The second set of reforms relates to collective bargaining and union rights. We want to put in place a fairer framework for workers to bargain for better terms and conditions. Collective bargaining and union relations are critical elements of success for some of our most successful companies. The previous Government weakened the collective bargaining and union recognition framework. This has led to worse working conditions for many New Zealanders and a more unequal society. The bill proposes to remove the ability of employers to opt out of multi-employer collective bargaining at the outset of bargaining. The current opt-out undermines the object of the Act to promote collective bargaining, and has been seen as inconsistent with New Zealand’s obligations under ILO Convention 98 on the Right to Organise and Bargain Collectively. Employers could still conclude a single-employer agreement after multi-employer bargaining, but the change will mean that they at least have to come to the table and discuss the merits of a possible multi-employer collective agreement.

Changes by the previous National Government allowed employers to deduct wages for partial strikes. In some instances, this has resulted in employees losing pay for low-level action such as wearing a T-shirt instead of wearing their uniform. Pay deductions for partial strikes is an unfair restriction on collective action. This bill proposes to repeal pay deductions as a response to partial strikes. We also propose that collective agreements must include pay rates. This amendment follows recent case law that held that refusing to include pay rates in a collective agreement did not equate to a genuine reason not to conclude bargaining. Pay is a key term of employment, and the ability to exclude pay from collective bargaining runs contrary to the very purpose of the Act. This has been a challenging drafting exercise, and I encourage members of the select committee to listen carefully to submitters on this aspect.

This legislation restores minimum rights for all working people, and it improves workers’ bargaining positions in the workplace. To lift wages, we must not only grow our economy; we need to ensure that we have an industrial relations framework that shares the growth amongst the people who earn that growth. I commend this bill to the House.

The Employment Relations Amendment Bill, which has just been introduced by the Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety, will take New Zealand backwards—have absolutely no doubt about that. There is nothing in this bill that will, ultimately, be good for New Zealand or the workers of New Zealand. About the only thing that I agree with in the speech from the Minister was where, at the end, he agreed that a good industrial relations framework is critical to a strong and growing economy. I agree with that, but you cannot, I say to the Minister, simply announce that this bill will help workers and insert fairness into the workplace, and make it so. You have to look at what the bill actually does and the impact that it’s going to have on jobs, on costs, and on workers in New Zealand.

That is what we’re seeing time and time again from this Government. They start with a high-level “motherhood and apple pie” statement about saving the world and then expect no one to question the detail, the plan, or what it’s actually going to mean. I am going to try and do that, because I think this is important. This is a bill and this is a framework and this is an industrial relations plan from this Government that is going to cost jobs in New Zealand. It is going to increase the costs of the goods and services that are supplied and produced in New Zealand. I have no doubt it’s going to lead to more industrial action and more strike action, the likes of which we haven’t seen in this country for many years.

I’m going to start with the changes to the 90-day trial period, and that’s certainly one of the changes that’s received a lot of attention in the media. It’s one of the easier-to-grasp and sort of sound bite - type issues. Look, I welcome the Government backing down and now allowing businesses with 19 or fewer employees to take that. That’s a good start, but I want to question this—well, I want to question several things, but, first of all, if the Government now acknowledges that allowing very small businesses to take a chance on a younger or more vulnerable worker is a good thing, why would you cut off that opportunity for 70 percent of the jobs in this country? And, look, the Government likes to quote the Motu Economic and Public Policy Research Trust report in saying that’s the reason it’s all—well, even the Motu report, which, by the way, we don’t accept the methodology of, and we absolutely dispute that it’s in any way consistent with the findings of the growth of jobs in this country. But even that report acknowledges that the 90-day trial periods have lifted the employment rate in the construction sector by more than 10 percent. Now, the construction sector is largely made up of businesses with well more than 19 staff.

The other point on the 90-day employment rates that I just cannot make head or tail of is why you would set it up—given that this is a Government who’s bringing them back; they can do it any way they like—so that it punishes businesses that choose to employ more part-timers and women who job-share, because, at the moment, if you employed 15 people full-time, you’d be exempt, but if those same 15 full-time positions were job-shared or made up of a number of young mums or vulnerable workers working part-time, they’ll be subject to the Act. They’ll be subject to not having trial periods, and you know those businesses are going to say, “That’s too hard, I’m sorry. I’ll only go with the fulltime-equivalent.” It’s simply not fair.

Meal breaks—now, I have to challenge the Minister. He misled this House, in my opinion, by suggesting that, currently, workers are denied reasonable meal and rest breaks under the Act. That is simply not true, and I would also challenge the Government to show this House—we’ve got lots more speeches to come—any quantitative information that suggests the rest and meal breaks changes are creating a problem and that people are missing out on breaks. In fact, I have come across any number of workers who’ve said to me, “Look, frankly, I would far rather finish my five-hour block quickly, do my work in one fell swoop, have an apple or a muesli bar at my desk, and get home to my kids to meet the school bus. If you make me take a half-hour lunch break and a 15-minute smoko break, that just means I either get paid less or I miss the school bus.” How is that good for workers?

To me, this is about the Labour Party infantilising the workforce and the businesses of New Zealand. They don’t treat them as adults who can have sensible conversations about how you set up the work day in a way that’s fair. No business wants workers who are tired and rundown and not able to do their job—

💬 Hon Member: And starving.

And starving—that’s exactly right. But we do treat them as adults who can actually work out for themselves what makes sense, and I challenge, again, the Government to point to examples that justify this change, taking away flexibility from the entire sector simply because it doesn’t meet their ideology.

And I want to make one other point. We’ve seen a few comments from businesses saying, “Well, at least they’ve backed off the 90-day trial periods for small businesses. It’s not much, but we’ll take it.” But how many of those small businesses know that with the other hand, the Government has now imposed a whole lot more cost on small businesses who are currently exempt from the business restructuring rules? So, on the one hand, they might’ve been able to keep what they’ve already got, but, on the other hand, they’re being taken backwards as more costs now go on small businesses that they don’t currently have in restructuring. Where is New Zealand First standing up for small business there? Nowhere to be seen.

Under this legislation, unions can require businesses to start bargaining at any time they like, no matter how long has gone, and, as we heard from the Minister, they can force businesses to take part in multi-employer discussions. So no longer can a business say, “Let’s have a sensible discussion between me and my workforce, and the unions if that’s what the workers want, about what goes on in this workplace.” Actually, employers, with this bill, are going to be cut out of bargaining for their workforce. And you wait till the second part of the changes when they’re cut out completely. Already in here, businesses will be forced to accept whatever deal is done by other people, and I don’t think that’s right. And let’s be really clear: this is not just about “Hey, come to the table and see what the deal is.”, because the bill also says that once bargaining starts—and, remember, you have no choice about that as a business; you have to take part at any time—businesses may not leave the table until a deal is done.

So that’s a bit like saying, “I’m going to buy your house, and guess what? You have to keep negotiating with me until I’m happy with the price. You don’t get to choose. I’m buying the house, and you may not leave this negotiation until I’ve decided the price is right.” How is that a negotiation? How is that fair? That is simply requiring businesses to sit at the table and lose productivity at their own cost while their business suffers, until the union decides they’re prepared to conclude their deal. That is not fair, that is not reasonable, and that is not a negotiation.

Now, this bill also makes businesses become union recruiters. When you hire a worker now as a business, you’re going to have to make sure you’re explaining to your workers why they should join the union, how they go about it, and, oh, by the way, you have to put them on the collective contract for 30 days, whether they want it or not. Never mind what the worker wants—never mind what the worker wants. You have to put them on those terms negotiated by the union. You have to give them the forms to sign up to the union. Their details—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Order! Please don’t bring the Speaker into it.

Oh, I beg your pardon, Mr Assistant Speaker. You are quite right. The employer has to provide the information about the union. The employer has to put the worker on the union terms. The employer has to provide the worker’s details to the union. And why should they? Workers in New Zealand and businesses in New Zealand are grown up, so deserve the right to decide for themselves whether they want to join the union. If the unions have a value proposition that makes sense, the workers will join. Why are you forcing workers to take part? If the unions can’t sell their offering to the workers themselves, then they should give up and go home just like the Labour Party.

Unions can now come and go from business premises whenever they like without notice, without consent. Now, again, you should—Mr Assistant Speaker, I apologise. I challenge the Government to show me where it has been a problem that unions haven’t been able to get reasonable access to the workplace. We know it hasn’t, because it’s guaranteed in the law. But reasonable access is not enough. They want to be able to come and go as they choose.

I wonder how many businesses know that union members now get to have to be paid by the business for doing union work. So the unions are forcing businesses to recruit for them, they are forcing businesses to pay for them, they’re forcing businesses to let them come and go as they like, and we now also have businesses being required to pay for partial strike action. So let’s be really clear about this. Under the heading of “Industrial action”, a workforce that’s not happy with their union negotiated terms and decide they want more can say, “I’m going to only work part of the day, and you have to pay me for all of it.”—not you, Mr Assistant Speaker; the business. The workforce is entitled to not do their full job. [Interruption] And, look, they’re clapping. They think that’s great. The Government thinks that it’s great that workers shouldn’t have to do their job but they should still get paid for it.

Businesses won’t invest under these circumstances. Jobs don’t just exist. Jobs exist because businesses and New Zealanders work hard, they take a chance, and they invest. When you force those businesses to pay for the unions, to recruit for the unions, to give the reunions free reign to their premises, and then the unions decide, without even including the business necessarily, what the terms are, why would business in this country grow? They won’t. This is a framework that will cost New Zealand jobs. It will harm New Zealand workers, and we oppose it.

Kia ora. Kia ora tātou. Ngā mihi o Te Tau Hou ki a koutou. Wishing you all a happy New Year. What a shocking contribution from that member, Amy Adams. It reminded me—and I need to remind National Party members—of their shocking history in terms of workers and industrial legislation. Who will ever forget the infamous Employment Contracts Act, which that lot over there would have been celebrating? A disgraceful, disgusting Act that discriminated against workers, Pacific Islanders, Māori—yes, and you’re not looking, are you? They’re not looking, because they are hanging their heads in shame. It was the most shameful Act in the history of industrial legislation. [Interruption] Yes, it was, Mr Goldsmith. [Interruption] Yes, it was—yes it was. So the essence of the Act and their history, which Amy Adams talked about, is “Workers can do it on their own.” This is what she talked about: labour market flexibility. And you know what that means? It means you, Mr Goldsmith, he—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Order! Don’t bring me into the debate.

Sorry, sorry. My apologies, Mr Assistant Speaker. My apologies. That meant that in the workplace—this is the essence of what they did to us in the 1990s. I know first-hand because I was a union official fighting—

💬 Hon Steven Joyce: Can we talk about the current bill?

Oh no, this is all about the current bill. You know—

💬 Hon Steven Joyce: Well, it would be good if you would.

Hang on, Mr Joyce. This is all about the current bill.

💬 Hon Steven Joyce: No, it’s not.

Oh yes it is, because this is where it came from—this is where it came from. And you don’t want to talk about it because you’re a part of it. You were one—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Order! The member will not bring the Speaker into the debate.

Oh yes, I keep slipping up—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): It would be helpful if the member spoke to the Chair, and then you would avoid that.

I’m talking about this today because it’s important to talk about the history. I came into this House because of that lot on the other side representing workers—

💬 Rt Hon David Carter: Which time?

1999. And we drove their dirty, filthy Employment Contracts Act out of existence—out of existence—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): The member needs to come to this bill.

But, Mr Assistant Speaker, I’m coming to this bill. This is where it all came from.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): I will—[Interruption] Order! We are 2½ minutes into the member’s speech and the member needs to speak to the bill, not his history of coming to Parliament.

With respect, there’s a background—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): I hope the member is not going to question my ruling.

Oh, no way.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Very good.

I’m not like some of the people on the other side. I never would do that. But it’s important because some of the history here is being repeated—it’s being repeated—and we heard that in the member Amy Adams’ speech today when she talked about labour market flexibility and she talked about employer rights. She’s not talking about union rights, and that’s the essence of this bill. We’re talking about an amendment bill that confirms workers’ rights, that confirms union rights. That’s what this bill is all about, and the National Party are not interested and don’t want to know about it.

I’m saddened when I hear this nonsense about how dare we stand up for workers. That’s what the National Party is saying. So I want to commend our Minister, Iain Lees-Galloway, for his courage in bringing this to the House, because we got it right a few years ago. National get in, and then they stuff it all up. And it’s all about taking workers backwards, back into history—“Never mind the meal breaks. Let’s get a 90-day trial in.” This 90-day trial is perfect. It’s perfect.

Employers—if they don’t want to work with it, what are they doing in business, you’ve got to ask yourselves. See, most of them on the other side wouldn’t know, because they haven’t been employers. No, they’ve been here. They have no background—no history. I had an employment force of over a hundred, and did I use the 90-day trial? Very rarely—very rarely. In fact, I had to argue against my own managers in terms of it, because I thought it was a piece of legislation that acted against workers’ interests. They should be able to go to a job—a big job—and have some security. That’s what the 90 days is all about—to have some security—because if they don’t get that security, at the end of 90 days one of Mr Goldsmith’s friends would say, “See you later. Away you go.” That’s what they do, because it’s all about productivity, isn’t it, Mr Goldsmith? It’s all about productivity—“Move on, and get out.”

So I think that we’ve got the right balance in terms of the 90 days. We look after the small employer—unlike the other side—and I think, in terms of bigger employers, they must face and look after the obligations they have. So, again, I think we’re on the right track. We’re trying to correct the mistakes of the past.

💬 Hon Tim Macindoe: The member has no idea what he’s talking about.

Well, I’m coming to the speech now. So in terms of the bill, it has a much more balanced focus, and I just want to briefly address some of the elements in the bill. I support—[Interruption] Look, I got a bit worked up when I heard that sort of nonsense from one of your senior members. I mean, it was shocking really. I know she’s a contender for leadership, unlike some of the members on that side, but there was no need for that sort of abuse against some of our union members and workforce.

But some of the areas that the Minister has talked about I think that are important are the collaborative effort of the Government parties who have worked closely to develop the proposals, particularly the 90-day trial period, the fairer share of the growth in the economy, the better rate for workers—which wouldn’t concern the other side—better union-employer relationships from which a better work environment and more productive outcomes are achieved, and, of course, we’re making serious progress towards honouring the Government’s election promise to lift the minimum wage to $20 by 2021.

We’re also breathing real life into the equal pay for work of equal value kaupapa—an initiative that I worked on in the mid to late 1980s with the Northern Clerical Workers Union—and this key area of tackling worker exploitation is very important. I know that the National Party always say, “Give us an example.”, but when we invite them to come out with us, they never come. We’ve done that through the years.

As well as that, we’ve got the introduction of the fair pay agreements, and the list goes on. So I salute our Minister in terms of what he’s trying to do, and I think the balance is right.

In terms of the meal breaks—I mean, these are considered fundamental to ensuring a workforce is properly revitalised, energised, and fully productive. It is beyond me why and how the previous Government could legislate against a fundamental right like that in terms of meal breaks. It just seems like everything’s on the table when it comes to workers’ rights. When it comes to fair pay in terms of workers, everything seems on the table from the other side.

What upsets me—and it really was exemplified in Amy Adams’ speech today, her kōrero today—was that she’s so shocked and National are so shocked and horrified that we would dare stand up for workers and unions in this country. What’s actually wrong with that? What is the problem? We stand here proudly in support of workers and unions in this country. As the Minister of Employment, I am proud to stand by them.

Do we support business? Of course we support business. Businesses are not going to collapse, as in the dire predictions from the other side. We heard them in 2000, when we changed the dirty, rotten, filthy Employment Contracts Act. We heard all the predictions of “Oh, the workforce is going to cave in.” Nothing changed. In fact, things flourished between 1999 and 2008, and between 2008 and 2017 things went backwards in the workplace. Things went backwards in the workplace.

So I just think this is such an opportunity to rectify things. It is amending all the mistakes and nonsense that were put out by the previous Government, who are on record, really—we heard it again today from Amy Adams—in terms of, basically, saying “Who cares what workers want? Who cares what the workforce wants? It’s all about our mates—Mr Goldsmith’s mates out in Epsom and around Auckland. It’s not about your average, ordinary Kiwi.” I say today, shame on you, Mr Goldsmith, shame on the National Party, and we’re going to fix your mess. Kia ora anō tātou katoa.

Well, that was an interesting contribution from Minister Willie Jackson, where it was not only a history lesson, in fact, for much of the first half of the speech, it has to be said—I think it is now dealing with issues that are 27 years ago, which is about as current as Willie is—but it was also a history lesson in attitudes. It’s ironic that the party that spent so much time discussing the future of work is now spending so much time on the history of work, when, actually, the world has changed. The current Minister of Finance, who was the former shepherd of the Future of Work Commission, professed that he understood that, but this bill has absolutely no understanding of how work has changed, how people approach workplaces in the 21st century, and it just goes to show, actually, because it can’t even divorce workers from unions.

Unions now literally have just 10 percent of private sector workers, and yet all we hear about—all we hear about—from this Government in regards to this bill is unions. Well, actually, 90 percent of workers don’t belong to unions any more. Let’s talk about those people for a minute. Let’s talk about those people, and let’s talk about the New Zealand economy and how it’s been helping workers. Over the last two years, 245,000 more people have got jobs in this country. That’s an average of 10,000 new jobs a month. We’ve never had a job creation streak like this. And, we now have, as further evidence of that job creation streak, the highest proportion of adults in New Zealand in work today, or at least in the last household labour force survey—we’ll see in the next one. But it is the highest ever. More people have the opportunity to work and be paid than they have ever had before, as a proportion of the adult population in this country. On top of that, we have the third-highest rate of adult employment in the developed world. Think about that: the third highest in the whole of the developed world—in all those OECD countries, the third-highest rate of employment.

So, with the greatest respect for the incoming Government, there is a high bar for change. Now they, rightly, will talk about wages, because that’s an important part of the story as well. Wages have been rising at twice the rate of inflation in this country over the last several years. Everybody wants wages to go higher—everybody. That’s important. We want to see New Zealanders become wealthier and more prosperous, and it’s been proceeding under the current employment relations settings better than it has for years—better than it has for years. So, we have the highest rate of employment, we have the highest rate of job creation, we have the highest rate of wage growth, we have some of the best-performing statistics of our labour market in the developed world. That sets a very high bar for change—a very high bar for change, indeed.

So let’s now look at what those changes mean. The first change is to take something that New Zealand small and medium sized businesses are using to give new workers, workers on the edge of the labour market, workers who’ve been unemployed for a significant period of time—giving them the opportunity to take on those people and lowering the risk a little for them and for those people, and giving them access into a job for the first time, with these 90-day trial periods. And it’s working. I’ve read that Motu report, and with the greatest respect to the people at Motu, the problem is they didn’t talk to the employers about how important it was for them. If you talk to any small business, and medium-sized businesses, you’ll find that most say to you that they—

💬 Hon Iain Lees-Galloway: You’ll listen to the anecdotes but not the real research.

It’s built on a false premise, Mr Lees-Galloway. It doesn’t compare a counterfactual; in fact, it says it can’t compare a counterfactual. That’s the problem with the research. But anyway, the more important story is these small and medium sized businesses. And the bit I don’t understand, which I hope a Government speaker is now going to explain—and perhaps the New Zealand First speaker might be able to that for us—is how to make a distinction between 20 employees or more, and 20 employees and less. If 90-day trials work, they work. If they don’t work, they don’t work.

💬 Hon Iain Lees-Galloway: You did it.

You’ve got to actually land on it—and to walk away, as Mr Lees-Galloway said, and say “Employers of over 20 people: you’ll be fine because you’re a big company.” Well, with the greatest respect, companies with 20 staff are not big companies. Companies with 20 staff are generally under massive pressure. You’ll generally find that those—you know, they’ve got lots of work to do, they want to bring on more people, they don’t have the systems of a really big corporate; they just want to hire somebody and give somebody a chance and see if it works out so they can be added to the team. And it’s been so successful in bringing people from the margins of the labour market into the labour market. And we know, because we have the highest rate of employment that New Zealand has ever had. So it’s working. And the test is on the Government to prove that it needs to change.

Then we have the rather interesting set of, shall we put it politely and say “initiatives”, for the union officials who support, of course, and campaign for the Labour Party. This could perhaps be charitably described as some sort of quid pro quo for their help with the election campaign. These are a grab bag of 10 things that shift the balance in favour of union officials. Not workers—nothing to do with workers; it’s about union officials. Remembering that only 10 percent of private sector employees now choose to belong to a union, the bar is high for saying to those people—the other 90 percent—that you must now be linked in to the union, as these changes do.

Then we have, with the greatest respect, the misleading suggestion about meal breaks. The law was changed to allow meal-break timing to be negotiated. That’s what the change was, and it was in response to concerns in particular about air traffic controllers but also other industries. It was a simple change. It did not remove meal and rest breaks. It did not do that, and anybody who stands up in this House and says it did is simply being factually incorrect.

One of the reasons this economy and this country have been going well and been delivering higher wages, more job opportunities, and growth is because we have all been working together. We haven’t gone back to the old-style union tub-thumping approach that we have seen from Mr Jackson here in the House this afternoon, harking back to 1970s-style trade unionism.

💬 Jamie Strange: 1990s.

No, 1970s—which is now nearly 50 years out of date. We have got together and moved ahead because we have encouraged our small businesses—and virtually all of New Zealand businesses are small on world standards—to get out there, work with their people, take risks, and get ahead. And that has been successful for workers because of that information I provided. That has been very successful. And we know these businesses are worried. I hear it all the time, that this is one of the key things that is driving business confidence lower. We have improving international economic conditions. Our businesses should be as confident as, right now. They should be just absolutely going nuts with confidence, and yet their confidence is down dramatically. It is negative. And small-business confidence is the worst it’s been since the height of the global financial crisis.

How does that make sense? It can only be because of something that the Government is doing. And this is one of the things the Government is doing that is upsetting New Zealand businesses that are striving hard to succeed, striving hard to hire more people, pay more people, and make a success of life—working in New Zealand. This bill is bad. There is a high bar. The Government must demonstrate why it should proceed.

Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker. I just want to start my contribution on behalf of New Zealand First by thanking the member across for having a very calm approach to this subject, Amy Adams for her passion, and, of course, Willie Jackson for his passion, but also for the work that’s been done behind the scenes to get this bill into the House in 100 days. I think that’s very, very commendable.

I think it’s the first proof of how MMP can work very, very well for this country. When we first sat down and looked at some of the ideas that our coalition partners had, and discussed those, we realised that we needed to sit down and work through some of those differences. It is no surprise to everybody that New Zealand First did ensure that we kept the 90-day work trials for small and medium sized businesses. The question that the Hon Steven Joyce raised is, if we think that 90-day work trials actually work in some cases, why didn’t we leave them in there in their entirety?

He mentioned the small to medium sized enterprises (SMEs). The SMEs are a measure that the National Government actually introduced—small to medium sized businesses, with under 20 employees. You didn’t give any clarity about whether they were going to be full-time equivalents (FTEs) or if they were just going to be employees in general. Maybe that is something that this new coalition Government can look at, moving through in the future. We certainly will ask this of submitters, as it goes through the select committee, to find out how practical and realistic that is. That is something that could be raised.

I want to also discuss and bring up the point that Amy Adams made about this compulsory opting-in for a month while a new employee gets their feet on the ground, gets their legs under the table, and understands what’s happening. Well, I said the same thing to the National Party when they brought in compulsory opting-in to KiwiSaver. You had a month’s trial and then you could decide yourself, as an employee, that this is either “good for me” or this is “not good for me”. If it’s good, they stayed on and they contributed to the KiwiSaver programme, or they opted out.

My point is that it gives people choices. They’re not going to be disenfranchised in any way by being part of a union. In actual fact, they will get natural higher rates, through those unions. I myself, in my early years of working, when I was working in the apple pack-house and I was working in other areas, I joined the union for a short period of time, and then I realised, “Do you know what? I can do this on my own.” I negotiated my own individual employment agreements—[Interruption] This is my point. Then I realised I had the strength of character and I could go and negotiate. But to actually have that option there, for workers to understand what the unions are offering and what I can go and get for myself, is giving them the flexibility and the job security, which is very important.

Raising wages in this country is something that I am proud of as a New Zealand First MP and that we negotiated hard for in this coalition agreement, to make sure that we work towards a living wage economy. When I spoke to the Deloitte’s BusinessNZ seminar, and they did a survey after we announced the fact that we were promoting a living wage, and we would move there with tax incentives and packages for businesses, to ensure they could pay for it, it was very well-received. In fact, 91 percent of the people that did the survey also agreed that we need to work into a living wage. This coalition agreement, as quickly as practicably possible, is working towards that.

We need to look at raising the bar, and I will tell you why. Raising the living wage—which is not part of this bill, Madam Deputy Speaker, but just to give an oversight of what this will also add to—will actually stop the brain drain of Kiwis going to Australia. Raising wages, which this bill does actually do, by these agreements that we have inside this—

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: It’s a long bow.

It is a long bow. But it also will create higher productivity. This bill is designed to do that. We want to get better productivity. When we look around the world, in the OECD, New Zealand’s productivity is one of the lowest of First World countries. I want to acknowledge the fact that when the Hon Steven Joyce mentions the fact that we’ve got the third-highest rate of employment—the third-highest rate of employment—again, I get back to the standard. The previous Government encapsulated that data by saying, “If you work one hour a week”—just one hour a week—“you’re deemed to be employed.” And yet, when I go and test that theory in the real world, “employment”, to anybody that understands it, means that you can look after yourself sufficiently and you don’t need to be beholden to the Government or the State to top you up with a supplement or a boost.

So we’ve actually got a false data collection when we say we have the third-highest employment rate in the world. In actual fact, because we capture anybody that’s got a job for an hour or more, that’s not real employment because, guess what? Taxpayers are paying for that top-up. We have got a State-dependent country at the moment. There’s a lot of people, even those that are employed, that need extra help and support.

Moving ourselves up by using all mechanisms that we possibly can, including the unions and what they add, will help New Zealand and New Zealanders stand on their own two feet. It’s going to give more PAYE and GST to the Government, to get back to core business. It’s going to make more cash available, more money in more people’s pockets, so businesses will be richer. There will be more profitability.

So this doom and gloom of how bad this bill is, we say goes against what we are hearing in businesses. In actual fact, I’ve got some remarks. Hospitality New Zealand commends the fact that New Zealand First has negotiated the 90-day work trials remaining. That’s important. It’s huge for people in business. We’ve got here Tenby Powell, the founder of the SME Business Network, which has more than 11,000 members. He’s also welcomed the decision. He says here, “We are thrilled that the Government have chosen to retain the 90-day trials period for small and medium sized businesses. It’s a very pragmatic solution, in a tough employment environment.”

Now, even Minister Willie Jackson said he also employed people, and it was commendable to hear the fact that he had used 90-day trials in the past, as have I with my businesses. The vast majority of businesses do use them in the manner that they are designed to be there for, and it does give a little bit of certainty. We go back to a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work. We’ve got to get the right balance between employer and employee. This bill takes that step to ensure that that balance is there—that the needs of the employer looking for skilled, dedicated, and flexible staff is at the absolute forefront of anybody employing anybody, and that the employee’s needs of having job stability, safe working conditions, and good remuneration packages are part of that balance.

So New Zealand First is proud to be supporting this. The meal breaks that we are winding back the clock on—when I first came into this House, this was one of the first pieces of legislation that came through. To me, the irony of that is that we were putting through the health and safety plan, which was all about ensuring that workers in their workplaces were going to be kept safe and sound, and yet part of that safety was ensuring in high-stress jobs, in dangerous jobs, that those workers could actually stop, rest, prepare themselves, have a meal break, and then continue on with their work.

There are exemptions in this bill that will actually allow certain businesses to have that flexibility for their workers. If there are other businesses not included, we’d like to hear from them if they think they should have that flexibility, but we’ve got to think of the safety of our workers. This ensures safety first, making sure that when people do go to work, they do come home safely at the end of the day.

I understand what Amy Adams has spoken about, and I agree with her, to a degree, that that flexibility, in some cases, is very, very pragmatic. However, it’s a little bit too prescriptive, and we can find workers being bullied into situations and forced out of their meal breaks, which is not the intention of what we were trying to achieve.

I’d like to just conclude by commending this bill through the House to select committee, where we will be paying very, very close attention to what the submissions are, and if we can improve this bill in any way, we will certainly have our eyes and ears wide open to that. But we’d just like to say that those 90-day work trials are very, very pragmatic, and despite the fact that there are a very, very small number of businesses who abuse this regulation, we will be collecting data.

I have to say, we are not trying to hit with a hammer all businesses, but, unfortunately, the data had not been collected for the last nine years, and so we’ve got a bit of work to do to find out specifically—is it industry-focused, is it employer-focused, and which employees are actually getting caught up with these bad business practices? We certainly are very, very pro-business. They are the lifeblood of this country, as too are our workers. That fair pay for fair work is the balance that we are going to strike and that we have got with this bill, so we commend the bill to the House.

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I will start with raising a comment that the previous speaker, Clayton Mitchell, made at the start of his speech commending the coalition Government for bringing this bill together within its 100-day plan. And, absolutely, they’ve brought it together—in haste. They’re brought it together based on an ideological whim, and it’s based on the 1970s.

It’s based on the bad old days, where they are amending a set of tools in our industrial relations tool box that are pragmatic and have had the effect on the ground—on the ground. I have heard from my constituents, because we’re real MPs—we go and we listen to businesses, we go and listen to employees. They are amending tools in the tool box that have had the effect of growing this economy and allowing businesses to take chances on people in a tight employment market, and growing job supply and allowing people to get ahead. I think that’s pretty rich, from a coalition Government that say that they are the champions of the most vulnerable. Well, I say to them that if you cannot create jobs in New Zealand and enable people to have the skills to get into work, to earn some money, to feed themselves, to house themselves, to look after their family, then you cannot call yourselves champions at all.

When we were in Government, we made pragmatic changes to our industrial relations law that created 245,000 jobs in the past two years, and part of that was the 90-day trial. I absolutely oppose the fact that this coalition Government is going to make amendments to the 90-day trial period. The reason for that is because we have such low unemployment in this country.

We’ve heard from previous speakers on this side that the 90-day trial period is about giving young people a chance—absolutely. Absolutely it is. When a young person enters the workforce, they are unproven. They need to be given the space and the time to prove themselves so that an employer can say, “Yes, I need this person, I want to take a chance on this person, let’s give it a go.”

But also, when you have an unemployment rate in New Zealand that is less than 5 percent, and, let me allude, down in Southland and Invercargill it’s less than four percent, you are scraping the bottom of the barrel with regard to skills—sorry, Madam Deputy Speaker—and finding resource, which is the human beings that we need to work. Part of what employers do is they create attractive employment opportunities, and they give people who want to have a change in career a chance. The 90-day trial period is exactly what that is about—so people that may be in one industry and have absolutely no experience in another can put together their CV, modify it so that they can highlight their transferable skills, and they get given a chance. And that’s wonderful, because it means that they can be employed, be valued—obviously, feel reward from their work—earn money, and keep their family. That’s what a fair society is about. But here we go, based on a whim, the coalition Government is starting to make these changes that are unproven and have absolutely no regard for small, medium, and large sized businesses.

The other thing I want to talk about in this bill is the changes to the rest and meal breaks. I’m going to highlight the problem with this with a story. In Invercargill, I know a young hairstylist, a very good young hairstylist that has won awards. She’s very, very good—

💬 Hon Tim Macindoe: Ria Bond?

No, it’s not Ria Bond, unfortunately. It’s another lady. She’s won awards, and she took the chance to start her own business. I think that that is fantastic. She’s very young, but she was exceptionally good—and still is exceptionally good—at her trade. She started this business. She—let’s face it, when you start your own business—was working herself to the bone. Hairstyling—look, I’m not trained, but when you put a colour on—I’m going to break it down in very simple terms. When you put a colour on, you have to go away and leave it for a time, but when it’s time to come off, it’s time to come off. So you need flexibility—sorry, Madam Deputy Speaker, again. The employer needs flexibility in the workplace to make sure that operations can run smoothly.

Getting back to the 90-day trial, she’s taken on people on the floor—young people—to help her out. But, again, with those rest and meal breaks, she needs the flexibility to be able to say to the young person that’s working, “Look, you”—sorry, Madam Deputy Speaker, I’ve done it again—“Please, employee. You go and take the colour off. I’ll take my break.” She comes back, she does her work, and within that lull time the employee will go away and take her meal break. Now if that has to be structured, I’m not sure how that’s going to work when she’s got more than one client in her chair.

💬 Stuart Smith: People will end up with green hair.

They will end up with green hair, Mr Smith. You joke, but that is a practical example as to how our changes, when the National Party was in Government, have helped business to innovate and be flexible and achieve. Because of that, she thought, “Right, well, I’ll give it a go. I’ll start my business. I’ll take on extra people, but I can modify my operations to make it work.” So I think, in select committee, the coalition Government are going to find themselves held to account on several of these changes, because we know what business is saying, and we will test them as to what they think works.

Some of the other changes—I would like to talk about forcing businesses into contracts across an industry. Well, I can hear what the fishing industry are going to say about that straight away. I work quite closely with the fishing industry down in Southland. Given the size and shape of the fishing industry, yes, the fishing industry is very wide, but within that there is so much variation as to how the fishing industry operates. If collective bargaining and terms and conditions are forced on employer to employer and business to business—whether it be small, large, or medium, or with respect to pāua or finfish fishing—I can see what the answer is going to be with respect to my constituents. What they’ll do is they’ll go to ground. They’ll shut down. They won’t take that chance on that extra person.

💬 Hon Stuart Nash: Oh, rubbish!

Well they won’t, Mr Nash—they won’t. They’ll go to ground and they’ll consolidate, and they’ll make sure that the core functions—if they can protect the core functions, they will protect the core functions. They won’t focus on growing while this coalition Government is in power—they won’t focus on growing. They’ll go to ground, Mr Nash. You know it too. I’m looking into your eyes, Mr Nash, and I can see the doubt. I can see the doubt in your eyes—absolutely, Mr Nash. They’ll go to ground and they won’t be taking on those extra people, and they won’t be expanding.

What we will see is that this economy will go to rack and ruin. Jobs won’t be created; jobs will be lost. Our families will not be able to get a job, they will not earn money, they will not be able to house themselves, and they will not be able to care for their family. And that, Mr Nash, is not a fair society.

Tēnā koe, Madam Deputy Speaker. It’s a great pleasure for me to rise and offer the Green Party’s support to this bill in its first reading. I do want to specifically congratulate the Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety for getting such a substantive piece of legislation into this House, with a good deal of consideration in the process, within the first 100 days. This is an important signal to the country on where we are going and where our values lie, and I, for one, am incredibly proud to stand in support of this.

For too long, our laws and Government rhetoric have dehumanised people, trying to turn us, basically, into nice compliant cogs of industry. We have been told that we are employees and consumers—hardly ever, citizens. Most New Zealanders that I know have at times shed blood, sweat, or tears for their jobs. Many of us spend a huge amount of our lives at work, and yet, despite this, working people are all too often described and treated as a cost to business.

The relationship between employee and employer is not equal. An employee can’t fire their boss, they can’t cut or change their hours, and they can’t send their employer into an unsafe situation. We’ve been told for years now that we need to reduce costs for business, even up the playing field, and provide more balance in the employment relationship. The strange thing though about this is that almost all the changes we’ve seen in this House have tipped the balance more in favour of employers.

The change of direction has led us in recent years to a low-wage economy, too many workplace injuries, and burgeoning inequality. This was led by the employment reforms, and started by the employment reforms, of the 1980s and 1990s—partially clawed back by the last Labour Government, but then, again, undermined by the last National Government—and they’ve created barriers to working people acting collectively to balance that power against their employers.

We’ve heard so much this evening that echoes the view, or that just reinforces, that the National Party sees workers working together as a problem. They see unions as a problem, and this was so clearly demonstrated in the laws they introduced to this House where National decided that a guarantee of tea breaks was an unnecessary privilege for workers. They decided that partial strikes, even to the point of wearing a badge, was too much power in the hands of working people, and that needed to be balanced by enabling employers to cut those workers’ pay. National decided that union representatives having access to workplaces without an employer’s permission was unfair to employers. Our poor, poor employers—they’ve been having such a hard time at the hands of these difficult, difficult workers! Surely, when we know that this is starting off as an uneven playing field, this perception is unbalanced.

We’ve been told that all these changes were necessary, that if workers waited we would ultimately benefit from those gains of business, and that those gains would be shared and we would all be better off. We’ve been hearing that again and again throughout this debate, and yet what we have seen over the last nine years, particularly since the global financial crisis, is that what we knew was a pattern that when employment goes up, workers’ wages also used to track up as well—there was a connection between those two things. But that has been disconnected under the policies of the last Government and many, many working people are now struggling under working more hours but not getting the financial benefit out of it. While productivity has increased, their share of that profit has not been returned to them. It has gone to profit for the businesses, or the owners, or the shareholders, and not the people doing the work. This bill is the start of fixing that to make sure that the people who are actually creating the wealth get a share—a fair share—of that benefit.

We know that we have a lot of work to do. I suspect that most New Zealanders will know that feeling of resignation, at best, or resentment—not even at worst—in the face of low wages, insecure hours, and stressful conditions. This has become the norm in our country. It shouldn’t be, and it doesn’t need to be. It’s really hard to challenge these things on your own. It’s been really hard, even for people in unions, to challenge these things under our current laws. It doesn’t need to be that way. Our job in this House is to represent the best interests of all of our people, not a small, select, privileged group. That is why we need good employment laws that support workers and their unions.

The National Party often tries to undermine unions, and, man, we have heard that tonight. They suggest that this side of the House—I’ve heard it particularly targeted at the Labour Party—are just union lackeys. They keep on talking about referring back to the 1970s and how we’re out of touch. But, really, their rhetoric just shows how out of touch they are. Even the International Monetary Fund, once the flag-waver of neo-liberalism, has now recognised that the decline in union power has been responsible for the increase in income inequality around the world—even the IMF has recognised that. Their analysis found that the impact of declining unionisation is felt across the entire income spectrum. This is critical to this bill, which is about rebuilding the ability for unions—

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: Speak to the bill.

—to get access to workers and to be able to organise.

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: Speak to the bill.

This is the bill. It is core to this bill.

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: There’s nothing about the IMF in the bill.

As the Minister introducing this bill said, there are two key areas this works on: one is about working standards, and the second point is about improving the ability for collective bargaining and union access. This is critical to this bill and the opposition that has been expressed against it. Their analysis found that loss of unionisation was a key contributor to the top income share, as well as loss of income in middle and lower income workers. Reducing their bargaining power and de-unionisation has necessarily increased the income share of corporate managers’ pay and shareholders’ return. That is something that almost every New Zealander recognises when we look at the television and we see the people around this. We see this inequality that has been created by the policies of the previous National Government, and that is why it is so great to stand in this House to be able to start unwinding that, to return the ability for workers to join together to create some sense of balance and collectivity and community in their workplaces.

I do also want to challenge the idea that may be perceived by some that this is anti-business. I’ve managed many workplaces and been responsible for staff, and when those workplaces—and all of them have been, thankfully—became unionised, I benefited. I found out problems before they became a problem for me. We created a positive culture in our workplace, and we ensured that everyone was able to have a say. Without a union supporting that, it doesn’t happen, and we all suffer. Our workplaces suffer, our families suffer, and our society as a whole suffers.

This bill is the very first step in turning that around and restoring our well-being and the fairness and community back to this country—values the Green Party values highly.

I’m very delighted to speak on this piece of legislation. Can I start at the outset by acknowledging that this is a very important piece of legislation for the House.

This side of the House has launched a campaign called Protect NZ Jobs, and the reason for that is not that we don’t care as much as the Government do about the rights of workers, but what we do understand is that when you get that balance wrong, if you lead to increased costs to businesses and you muck with the 90-day trial period—when members do that with pieces of legislation, then jobs are lost. That is the reality. We live in a country where many small businesses are mums and dads working their butts off. They are not making huge amounts of money. So, from this side of the House, what we will be doing with this campaign is to make it clear to New Zealanders where the costs are and what will happen in terms of jobs.

The other point that I want to make is that I do want to make the point that we need to be honest about what the Labour Party’s intentions are here. I want to quote a Labour MP—Madam Deputy Speaker, it’s very difficult to hear.

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: I would just ask—all members are entitled to speak in this House, so interjections should be rare and reasonable—and, to quote an earlier colleague, preferably witty—but not a barrage. It is difficult for me even to hear.

I want to quote Clare Curran, actually. Clare Curran—and it is an important point. We are debating a piece of legislation that significantly increases the rights of unions, and I do believe that the Labour Party are conflicted. The reality is the Labour Party have a mechanism for their leadership for which unions have a percentage of the share of the vote, and this is what Clare Curran said about this. Clare Curran said a discussion was needed about unions and party members continuing to say who leads. The reality is there is a clear conflict there, and I think we need to put that on the table to New Zealanders.

They need to be aware of that, because this bill—let’s walk through. And, again, it is about a balance. Unions can do a great job, but when you look at this bill, the number of privileges—the increased privileges—to unions is very significant. I do want to list some of them: forcing businesses to accept multi-employer collective agreements, even when those businesses were not part of the negotiations; requiring businesses to sign up to collective agreements, even if they don’t agree to them; forcing businesses to pay unions for representing workers who are not even members—the list goes on. So I do want to raise that point.

The next point that I want to make is about young people. The reality is—and I do want to acknowledge the Government. The Government has shifted around the 90-day trial period, and that is a very important point. What we know is that that 90-day trial period has led to some young people getting a job that wouldn’t have been offered to them, because people have been prepared to take a punt on them.

What members on this side of the House will be asking at the select committee is why would you allow only small businesses, or why would members allow that only to small businesses, when it’s working? It’s created jobs. Solo mums, a number of people returning to the workforce, and a whole lot of young people have got jobs as a result of that. Why wouldn’t we continue to keep that policy in place?

The other point that I want to make here and now is that while we are debating this legislation, this is only part one, and we know on this side of the House—and what we’re concerned about is that we have a situation where we’ve had 10,000 jobs created each month. We’ve got ourselves out of a terrible situation around the global financial crisis. We’re a national of small businesses. We’ve got this legislation, we’ve got changes to the minimum wage—all of this adds significant cost and can lead to a loss of jobs. But this is only part one.

We know there is another agenda here. The Labour Party campaigned on that—minimum redundancy protection, protection for dependent contractors, abolishing youth rates, reducing—

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: Speak to the bill. Speak to the bill.

The point is that in a nation of small businesses, this matters. The choice for a mum and dad business to keep going can be the difference of a couple of hundred bucks a week—or a policy like 90-day trials. And this is part one.

We are very concerned. That’s why we are running a campaign to ensure that New Zealanders know that that side of the House are tipping the balance that will lead to a loss of jobs, that will lead to costs for businesses, and that will lead to some of our most vulnerable workers not getting the opportunities that they deserve. As I have already said, I think that New Zealanders do need to know. They do need to have absolute transparency about the conflicts of interest that exist on the other side of the House.

This is not a level playing field. This is a situation where the other side of the House actually have union votes in terms of their leaders. We know that our existing Prime Minister was able to not go through that process because it was three months before an election process, but I think it is something on which we need to have a public discussion about.

This bill is totally loaded towards privileges for unions, and the reality is if you get that balance wrong, then jobs are lost and costs happen, and that is not about fairness.

Just before I call the next speaker, can I just draw the House’s attention to Speakers’ Rulings, on page 49. Now, I’m not saying that the previous speaker broke those, but you do need to be aware of those Speakers’ rulings when you’re talking about the motives of a Government.

💬 Hon Iain Lees-Galloway: Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I was looking for those.

Page 49.

Tēnā koe, Madam Deputy Speaker. It is with immense privilege that I stand here to take a call on the Employment Relations Amendment Bill—

💬 Hon Tim Macindoe: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. I do apologise to the member for interrupting her as she’s getting under way, but could we just clarify that this is a split call?

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: I beg your pardon. It is a split call. It’s a five-minute call, with a bell at one minute, and a National call for the second five minutes.

In 2011, I was halfway through my employment law papers, and, at the same time, the then National Government introduced some changes to the Employment Relations Act. I remember at the time thinking they were a real attack on working people, and also, as a second-year law student, I felt that they were completely disregarding the object of that Act, which actually states that you should recognise and also address the imbalance in the employment relationship—the power of it. So I never would have thought that six years later, I would be standing here talking about a bill that is going to make such a huge difference in the lives of working people, and not just working people but their families, their communities, their representatives, indeed, and their employers as well.

Now I know there’s been a lot of scaremongering going on about how these changes are going to take us back to the 1970s, but, actually, these changes are a sign of us being a very modern Government, because they will give us an opportunity to improve, modernise, and innovate the workplace. In effect, the good employers won’t even notice any difference, because they are already doing all these things. They will actually find that these changes will benefit them, because what it will do is it’ll make it much harder for bad employers to go into unfair competition. But the bad employers, the ones who have boosted their incomes and profits by raiding the pay packages of their workforce, they are the ones who are going to feel the impact of these changes. So this bill is the first step in righting a lot of these wrongs. This bill is about restoring some basic human rights of workers: the right to be treated fairly and with dignity and the right to feel respected and to be valued.

The previous member had asked us about an example of the rest and meal breaks, saying that it was all made up, so I’ve got a little example here that is factual—you can check it. As soon as the changes to rest and meal breaks became law, instead of having two paid breaks in the morning and in the afternoon and an unpaid break in the middle of the day, production run times were increased. So there would be only one break—one paid and one unpaid. This means longer hours on the production chain, standing on concrete in gumboots, doing repetitive and strenuous movements. These people I’m talking about work either in freezing temperatures in the chillers or in extreme heat in the slaughter and boning rooms. They have their arms and hands above their heads for hours on end, and there’s heavy lifting that takes its toll on longer runs. Toilet and water breaks are actively discouraged because it means stopping the chain.

The outcome for these workers is fatigue and more injuries, and it gets worse as the day wears on because, with overuse of backs, shoulders, and wrists, and with fatigue, there’s also an increased risk of knife wounds. This is an example of the meat industry, and the Talley’s AFFCO workers are looking forward to rest and meal breaks being restored as soon as possible. There are plenty more where this came from.

A comment was also made the other day about it all being about jobs and that the first priority is just about having a job. How uninspiring—having a job. Never mind what the pay and conditions are, don’t worry about job security, minimum standards, health and safety—working people should just be grateful they have a job. Well, some of them have more than a job. They have two or three, and that’s because one job doesn’t pay the bills. They are not choosing to take more than one job; they are doing it because they need to survive.

Now, there’s an E tū member, and she’s a cleaner. She works three shifts between 6 a.m. and 11 p.m. Her husband does the mid-afternoon and evening shift, and he’s a security guard. They’re both on the minimum wage. They work their butts off, and they still can’t afford to pay for their family of two children. They can’t even spend time with their family. So when you’re talking about how it’s all about this job creation and how wonderful it is that we have all these jobs, these are the people you’re hurting. They’re hard-working Kiwis—people that can’t get ahead. We have people that put their heart and soul into jobs looking after our most vulnerable in healthcare, in disability, and, after 19 or 20 years in their jobs, they’re still on $17 an hour.

Now, this is what this bill is addressing. Yes, our working people are not commodities. They are, first of all, people. They have human rights. They have lives outside work. This bill is a good start to changing that, and I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I invite Marja Lubeck, the member who’s just resumed her seat, to come to my city of Hamilton and come with me to visit a whole range of small businesses and light industry, and meet with people who are working in jobs in Hamilton. I think the thing that she will find that is most clear is that the vast majority of employers recognise that the greatest single resource they have is their staff, and they do their level best to look after them to ensure that they are valued, because they know that it is a huge cost to any company, to any business, when staff change. Therefore, to suggest that all employers—as she seems to think—are these appalling, Draconian characters who are determined to deprive the workers of their rights is just utterly fanciful. It is so divorced from reality. I can’t believe we’re still having to listen to that sort of argument in this House.

Today, we’ve heard an extraordinary range of speeches. The Minister who introduced the bill gave a very sort of measured declamation, largely because he was able to read his speech, but, essentially, what he was saying was that this is a bill that reintroduces compulsory unionism by stealth.

That was followed by one of the finest speeches I’ve ever heard in this House, and that was delivered by the Hon Amy Adams, who gave a very, very thorough analysis of some of the many deficiencies of this bill, including the fact that it will cost jobs, including the fact that it will increase cost and disruption within business. If it is now so appropriate—and even Willie Jackson argued this—to retain 90-day trial periods for small businesses, it is totally illogical to suggest that those who employ more than 20 staff should not have the same opportunity.

She made the point that the bill forces businesses to become union recruiters, and if I have time I’ll return to that, but that very fine speech was followed by one of the most appalling speeches I’ve ever heard in this House: the extraordinary, incoherent, totally contradictory, and largely irrelevant contribution of the man who calls himself the Minister of Employment. It was, as I say, one of the worst speeches I’ve ever heard, and to show how appreciative I am, in one sense, of that, I ask the Labour Party to send a transcript of that speech, or maybe a video link, to every business, every employer, every small-business operator in this country, so that they can see what the Minister of Employment actually said, supposedly to justify this bill. He likes using the word “disgrace” a lot. Well, that speech was a disgrace. That contribution was utterly incoherent. Seldom has a Minister demonstrated greater ignorance of his portfolio than the Hon Willie Jackson did about half an hour ago.

Well, this bill is a recipe for a return to the regular industrial disruptions of the 1970s, which New Zealanders, overwhelmingly, don’t want to revisit, and I am old enough to be able to remember just about every Christmas when, it seemed, right on Christmas Eve, the Cook Strait ferries were suddenly on strike and families who were looking forward to a holiday on the other island from that in which they lived suddenly couldn’t travel because union power was asserted in a way that destroyed their holidays.

And I’m sure some of us of a certain age all remember the Māngere Bridge and how long it took for construction of that particular major piece of infrastructure to be completed. Far longer than the time actually spent progressively working on building was it held up by disruption, and business productivity in this country was regularly negatively impacted by that sort of union activity. This bill will take us right back there. That is why it is so serious. That is why the National Party is petitioning for the protection of workers’ rights, which, supposedly, members opposite care about but which, in fact, this bill will put at risk. It will damage productivity; it will damage the employer-employee relationships.

So while this may well be Labour Party payback for the great union support that they got at the election, it is unbelievably retrospective and negative, and it will cause major, major problems. I oppose it with every fibre of my being.

I’m so excited to support this with every fibre of my being. What a marvellous bill. This bill brings back fairness in the workplace. It brings back the fair go for the worker that that side of the House gives lip-service to whenever there’s an election campaign but does absolutely nothing for when they’re in Government—in fact, they reversed the rights that workers have fought hard for over generations in this country. That side of the House is not interested in the low-income worker. They are not interested in people that are working 40, 50, 60 hours a week and struggling to make ends meet. All they’re interested in is making sure that it is easy, at every single opportunity, to undermine workers’ rights in this country, because that is not their interest. But I am proud to say that this is a Government for all of New Zealand, and that includes workers as well as small-business owners and those that employ people.

I say that from some experience. I have been an employee. I have been a director of a company that hired hundreds of people in Wairarapa. I know both sides of the story, and, in fact, the business that I was a director for was in hospitality—one of the industries that pays the lowest across the country. But I tell you what, in a small rural community, where small businesses often depend on people’s capacity to spend—when households have discretionary income, small business does well. How can you turn there and say to New Zealand—

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: Hey!

I apologise. I’m still learning the rules, Madam Deputy Speaker. It’s a bit of a shame; I was getting a bit wound up there, too. I apologise, anyway.

How can that side of the House say that they are the party of small business, when it is small businesses in towns like Waipukurau and Waipawa and Dannevirke and Masterton that are looking up and down their main street and seeing empty retail shops because people don’t have the money to spend in their home towns because they’re working hard every hour that they can and they are still struggling to feed their families. This is the result of nine years of a Government that has spent every time it can to undermine the rights of New Zealand workers.

We have heard previous speakers. One that was the most notable, I think—it was talking about the minimum wage, and the Hon Nikki Kaye was saying that the previous Government increased the minimum wage. This is a factual statement. But what is also true is that this is a case of something being a good idea when they come up with it and a bad idea when we come up with it. In the nine years that the Labour Party were in Government, every single time we proposed increasing the minimum wage, that side of the House argued against it. The point of this is that when they are in Opposition they speak for their mates, and when they are in Government they give workers lip-service, and we’re seeing exactly the same thing here today.

We heard arguments about the 90-day bill. We heard that this will hurt small business. I’d propose that that side of the House haven’t even read the bill. It’s clear in this bill that there are provisions in this to look after small business. But the question I want to pose is that if we are moving, as we propose, from 90-day trials to making sure that businesses that employ people can do so on a probationary period on the basis that at the end of that period they need to provide a proper and decent reason for why they are not continuing that employment, what is wrong with that? What is wrong with treating people with dignity and respect and saying to them, “Look, I’m sorry. You weren’t able to meet what we previously agreed. You are not suitable for this job, and this is the reason why we’re not going to continue this employment.” That option is still available to them.

But the option that is no longer available to them—which most employers do not do but some do, and that is enough to make it wrong—is they hire someone for 90 days and, for whatever reason, be it a whim or be it exploitation, they say, “Right, you’re down the road.” If what that side of the House says is correct, which is that they want to see 90-day trials used to help young people get work experience and build confidence and have a chance and actually build and make something of their life, how on earth are they going to have confidence and learn something from an experience of working for an employer that exploited them, gave them no feedback, fired them for no decent reason, and kicked them down the road? Their arguments are not logical. They do not make sense. The fact is that they want to keep 90-day trials because the only thing that they want to preserve is some employers’ rights to get rid of workers without fair reason.

We’ve heard today from that side of the House about unions. They don’t like talking about unions. They don’t like what’s in this bill that gives unions and workers the rights to collective bargaining, because they know that collective bargaining is the best way for workers to ensure that they get their fair share of production. It is not just us that are saying it. It is the likes of the IMF, an internationally renowned and recognised organisation that has reversed its previous position and is now saying that the only way for working people to have a fair go is to ensure they have the right to collective bargaining.

I want to pose a question to this House: why is it that the National Party hates workers’ unions but loves Federated Farmers? Federated Farmers is a union. It is an organisation that represents its members, and that’s what a union is.

💬 Hon David Bennett: No, it’s not.

We’ve just heard the best contribution from the National Party to this debate all day. We’ve had senior members, former Ministers, former Ministers of Finance, former Ministers of Education, former Ministers of Justice, and the Hon David Bennett from Hamilton has come up with the most logical thing they’ve said, even if it didn’t make sense: “No, it’s not.” I felt like I’ve gone back to primary school. “No, it’s not.”—yes, it is. The point is that Federated Farmers is an organisation whom I support and this Government supports because they are group that represents their members. We don’t pick and choose. We don’t get into Government and say, “We’re going to support workers and trade unions, but we’re going to put in measures to clamp down on lobby groups and other membership organisations like Federated Farmers.” because we believe in the principle of people being able to get together collectively and lobby for their interests.

💬 Hon Iain Lees-Galloway: Freedom of association.

Freedom of association. We don’t pick and choose on this side of the House. I am looking at the member for National in Northland, the National member from Northland, a favourite on this side of the House, Matt King—

💬 Matt King: You’ve got my attention now.

—yes, yes—who used to be a police detective and a member of the Police Association, a unionist, and there he is. He’s very quiet, uncharacteristically quiet. Police know that it is in their interests to make sure that they have an association—just like a trade union, just like Federated Farmers—to ensure that their collective interests are advocated for, and yet here he is advocating against a bill that just wants to give other workers the rights that he enjoyed. You can’t pick and choose.

This bill is designed to, and will, ensure that the workers of New Zealand will have a fair go and that small business and small employers of New Zealand will still reap the benefits of decent conditions and a productive workforce. Also, what this will ensure is that people know that we are working towards a principle, an egalitarian principle that this country was founded on, of a decent day’s pay for a decent day’s work. That is no longer the case now after nine years of the previous Government. But this Government, this Labour-led Government, is committed to reversing the damage that the National Party has done and to actually giving Kiwis a fair go.

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. Interesting to hear that contribution from the previous speaker, Kieran McAnulty, who waxed lyrical about the freedom of association and the freedom of expression and said that you can’t pick and choose about your principles, and yet, a couple of days ago, voted for the waka-jumping legislation, which was the complete opposite. How can he stand up with any sense of dignity when he’s so compromised and makes no sense? It’s all part of what is a morally and intellectually incoherent Government that we’re dealing with.

One of the puzzles that we’ve got at the moment is why business confidence should be falling at a time when the global economy is going strong and the New Zealand terms of trade are higher than they have been for a very long time. When the economy is booming and the prospects for New Zealand are great, why is business confidence falling? Well, I suppose you can find an explanation by watching the Minister of Employment’s speech in this debate, where he waved his arms around and talked about the terrible history of the 1990s and said the essence of this bill was about union rights and this was all going to be the solution to our problems. You can understand why business confidence is falling.

Then we heard from Mr Jackson saying that—he talked about the shocking history of the National Party in this area. Well, if the history that we’ve seen for the last two years, where 245,000 new jobs have been created in this economy, is a shocking history, it’s a shocking history that I’m proud of, and it’s one that’s made a real difference to the lives of New Zealanders.

We hear constantly this talk about treating workers with dignity and respect. Well, there’s no greater dignity and respect to be gained than by getting a job, and that is what this economy has been delivering over the past few years—245,000 new jobs, or more than 10,000 a month. We’ve seen the average wage grow by $1,300 a year since 2008. It now sits at $60,000 a year. So we’ve seen great wage growth, we’ve seen a jobs boom, we’ve seen wage growth, and we’ve had the overall economy continuing to boom. So that’s the shocking history of the National Party, and one that I’m very proud of.

Where do jobs get created? They get created by individuals and companies taking a risk and making an investment. You are either investing in hiring a new person, building a new plant, or starting a new business. It’s all taking a risk and making an investment. They do that only if they have a level of confidence that that investment is going to pay off, and that’s why it’s so important to have a stable and predictable Government and one where people know where they stand. That’s what we’ve had for nine years in this country, and I do hope that it continues.

I hope that the Minister responsible for this bill does genuinely listen to the submissions that come through the select committee process over the next few months. I hope he listens carefully and is willing to respond, as he has demonstrated, I guess, through the negotiations with New Zealand First about the 90-day trial and winding that back a fraction. I hope he will continue to listen. He referred to robust discussions, and my understanding is that they were more than robust—they were ropey. But if he continues that process and listens to the submissions that we get, we might make some progress.

What they don’t seem to understand over there is the irony of the Minister of Employment coming out a couple of weeks ago about how he is going to spend $13 million by giving it to community groups in order to help some of the most marginal young people into work, and then, at the same time, this bill greatly weakens the 90-day trial period, which will make it more difficult for the most vulnerable people to get access to work.

💬 Hon Iain Lees-Galloway: You can’t back that up. That’s not true.

That is the truth. It is pure common sense. If you are taking a risk and taking a gamble—

💬 Hon Iain Lees-Galloway: You cannot back that up with any evidence at all.

Well, just look to human nature. If you’re taking a risk or you’re taking a gamble about whether to hire a new person and you’re confronted with the possibility of hiring somebody who is unskilled, hasn’t had any job experience, might have a few social issues, and hasn’t got a great education, and you want to take that risk, would you be more likely to take that risk—

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: I wouldn’t.

—if you had the opportunity of a 90-day trial? Well, I think the answer is obvious. Yes, you would be more likely to take that risk, and you are taking it away—

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: No, I am not.

—through this legislation. Quite right, Madam Deputy Speaker—you are not taking it away. This Government is taking it away, and taking away the hopes and dreams of many young people to get into the workplace.

The other thing that we need to bear in mind is that the continued progress that we’ve had in this country, the strong economic growth that we’ve had in this country, results only from New Zealand remaining internationally competitive. We live—like it or not—in a big, bad world out there that is highly competitive. New Zealand businesses compete in a highly competitive, fast-moving international context. We need to continue to improve our productivity, and we need to ensure that our businesses remain competitive. The only way to have sustainable increases in incomes over time, such as we’ve seen over the past few years, is for businesses to be more productive. There’s no magic to it. You can’t just wave your wand and say, “Legislate over the long term for higher wages.” It has to be generated by a stronger economy. That comes from investment, and the investment comes from a confident business sector prepared to make that investment, and that is why there’s such a concern that we’re seeing a reduction in that investment.

Now, I want to refer to the comments made by this Government’s own officials on this legislation. If we refer to the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) agency’s assessment of some of the risks involved in this, what they tell us is that we may well see “reduced employment due to changed incentives on employers to hire new workers”. So that’s interesting from the officials. That is one of the potential outcomes of this legislation—reduced employment.

A second potential outcome is “an increase in industrial action and protracted bargaining due to the need to conclude agreements and include wages in collective agreements”, and everybody in the country is well aware of the uptake of industrial action that we’ve seen since the election—the train strikes, the public transport strikes, which are dreadfully undermining the public’s confidence in public transport. We’ll see more of that to come, and I just hope that they will think very carefully about this bill and the impact that it will have on “an increase in industrial”—I’m just quoting here from the officials’ report on what the potential outcomes are of this legislation.

We’ll also see “an increase in partial strikes as removing pay deductions for partial striking may remove the disincentive to take partial strike action”. Well, again, that’s pretty common sense. If you can go on a go-slow or not be around for half the day but you continue to be paid, well, it’s very likely that we’ll see more of that activity.

Then we see here that “reinstating the right to prescribed meal and rest breaks could lower firm productivity by not accounting for the necessary flexibility to avoid business interruption.” The previous Government had brought in some extra flexibility. We see here that “There could be safety risks for essential services if breaks [are not] mandated. Insufficient flexibility [will] produce significant non-compliance among employers.”

So I think there’s a lot for the select committee to consider. I’m looking forward to hearing from submissions. I do hope the Minister and this Government will genuinely listen to not just their funders and friends within the union movement—

💬 Hon Iain Lees-Galloway: Point of order.

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: I can anticipate the point of order. I did refer members earlier to page 49 of Speakers’ Rulings. You cannot imply that a Government is funded from an organisation that is influencing what they’re doing.

I regret that implication. I will continue on by saying that I do hope that this Government and this Minister will listen carefully to a wide range of opinions and particularly take note of the views of those people—the employers—who are taking that risk and that gamble and that real chance when they invest in a new job. I hope that they will listen to the needs of them in terms of having some certainty around the industrial relations climate that we’re inheriting.

So we look forward to the discussion, but I am deeply concerned about many of the things that have been outlined by MBIE as they’ve gone through the potential costs of this bill. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. Kia ora koutou to the House. I am absolutely delighted to be here speaking on the Employment Relations Amendment Bill this afternoon. I want to acknowledge the work that the Hon Iain Lees-Galloway has done in bringing this bill to the House in such a short time. We’ve heard criticism of that short time here this afternoon, but this bill—along with the work that our coalition parties did, and our New Zealand First and Greens have helped here with—is a really, really strong piece of legislation.

I’m excited because, today, we are taking steps to restore fairness and equity to the workplace. We are evening out the playing field in the workplace, because over the last few years that playing field became less and less even. Workers have struggled and found it hard in the last few years.

We’ve just heard about the 90-day trial period, and that has caused a great amount of controversy over its time. I’ve just heard a whole lot of arguments about it. I want to acknowledge my colleague Kieran McAnulty when he pointed out that some of the members haven’t even read what’s in this bill when they’re talking about it.

But I’ve just heard the previous member from the other side, the Hon Paul Goldsmith, talk about the hopes and dreams that the 90-day trials brought to these people. Oh! My mouth just dropped, because I’m going to tell you about the hopes and dreams—I wasn’t going to tell this story, but I’m so incensed that I’m going to tell this story of the hopes and dreams that were dashed, under the 90-day trial, of one of my former pupils. The hopes and dreams of how he was employed in his very first job under the 90-day trial and, the last time I saw him, how excited he was that he was providing for his family in that job, and how excited he was that he was going forward in that job. On day 89, without any warning, he lost that job, and two weeks later, thinking he’d brought shame to his own whānau, he took his life. That’s what the hopes and dreams of the 90-day trial period did for that particular pupil. So don’t talk to me about hopes and dreams that that trial causes for our young people.

Also, I’ve heard about statistics here this afternoon. I’ve heard about 245,000 jobs created in the last two years. Statistics can tell a very skewed story when we hear them like that. Actually, let’s take another statistic. Statistics New Zealand, in September last year, said that unemployment was slow to get to acceptable levels. In fact, we had slipped to 13th in the OECD. If we had 245,000 jobs, why was that the case? And what is the quality of those jobs?

Actually, I heard an invite by the Hon Tim Macindoe over there. I heard that invite for our member here to go to Hamilton. I would give you the same invite to come and visit some of the families—

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: I would love to visit.

Oh, I’m sorry, Madam Deputy Speaker. It’s just been part of it today—sorry. I invite the Hon Tim Macindoe to come and visit some of the families that I have worked with over the past few years. Those families have got lower and lower quality of jobs in that time. Those families are taking more and more jobs on and working more and more hours at minimum wage levels, while costs are going up through the roof, just to survive. Come and visit those families. Come and talk to those families who are taking those jobs on and who never see their families. Mum and dad are team-tagging because they are having to take on so much work just to make ends meet.

Come and see those parents who are absolutely shattered after working those hours, who have not been allowed to have meal breaks. We’ve heard about meal breaks here. We’ve heard “Oh, that was because of our airline people, our traffic controllers.” But what it caused was that anyone could be put into a situation where meal breaks were taken from them. That is a right for most of us that we feel we need, but meal breaks were taken from these families. I have seen people absolutely shattered after working hours and hours and hours and not having a meal break in that time.

Come and see those people that have been told not to come back to work. In one case I had a parent asked not to come back to work the next day because they’d asked about joining the union.

💬 Marja Lubeck: All the time.

All the time, that is happening. So, this bill is a good-news story for families. Collective bargaining has the ability, and is the best mechanism, for increasing wages in this country—increasing wages for our families so that they can be families again. This is what this bill will do, and it is good news for the children.

Good employees and good employers won’t mind these changes. In fact, they will welcome them because they are already enacting this. When employers and employees are able to work together on equal terms and treat everyone with dignity and respect, everybody benefits. I’ve been a union member for all of my working career, but I have also been an employer over that time too, and I encourage any of my employees to join the union. I am incredibly proud that I had a high union density. In fact, when I left that job, I had 100 percent union density in my staff. The unions are not scary. The unions make the workplace better. My workplace was better because of the strong union involvement in my workplace.

Strengthening union involvement and openness is crucial to achieving better conditions for workers in New Zealand. I have seen, multiple times, when we have brought unions in to support workers—and I’m going to tell a story. When I first went to my last school, I got a union member in to look at my teacher-aide wages because I felt they weren’t on the right level. I had to pay $20,000 in back-pay in that time. That was the best amount of money I have ever spent, because I got that back in spades. Union involvement gives our workers what they deserve, and a good employer will buy into that. Even some of our most successful companies in this country are finding that having a better working relationship with unions is a strength to their company.

What the other side of the House is thinking is going back in time. They talk about us going back in time. But they don’t understand that that relationship has moved on plenty, over the years. The unions are a fantastic place to support our workers and also our employers. They want to see good working conditions. They want to see good employer-employee relationships.

Then I’ve heard over there about collective bargaining. Another aspect that I’ve been involved with over the years is that I’ve been a member leader of collective bargaining for the last 10 years. Negotiating collective agreements is always going to be hard, no matter what Government you’re working under. It’s a hard time. Members’ expectations are always going to be higher than what can be afforded to be given out. But it’s important that we have an absolute strong commitment to continue on and find a way through.

I think of my own situation. I was negotiating on behalf of the principals. If there was no duty to conclude—and this would be the same for any workforce, but I’m thinking in particular of the educators—imagine the chaos that would occur, and that was the possibility. Before we bring this in, that is the possibility and the reality of what could happen now.

This bill strengthens so much for workers. It strengthens so much for workers. It makes our country a much more fair and much more equal place. On that, I commend this bill to the House.