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26 July, 2010
Hundreds of trade unionists backed by their unions and led by New Zealand Council of Trade Unions (NZCTU) President Helen Kelly fiercely manifested outside the National Party’s annual conference in Auckland on 18 July, protesting the ruling party’s treachery in launching anti-worker revisions to the country’s Employment Relations Act.
Inside, Prime Minister John Key used his keynote to state that the party’s legislative mandate will now aim to roll back workers’ rights and union rights. For starters, the Nationals intend to pass a law extending the rights-less, 90-day probationary period, now at workplaces with fewer than 20 workers, to all workplaces.
The policy paper that formed Key’s surprise keynote speech broke earlier commitments made by the prime minister to trade unions and the NZCTU that hard-line changes to the Act would not occur. Several NZ unionists at the manifestation showed their anger by skirting security to take the protest inside the Auckland casino/hotel where the National Party was meeting.
NZCTU President Helen Kelly
By Thursday, 23 July, trade unions had met and jointly devised an aggressive mobilization campaign against the legislation.
The Kiwis call the trial 2008 probationary measure “the 90-Day Fire-at-Will” law. Kelly said that nearly one-quarter of all workers employed under the existing scheme for small employers have been sacked. And 47% of those firings are workers under the age of 23.
Other provisions to the National Party agenda erode existing labour law. The test for justified dismissal under the Employment Relations Authority gets weakened; union access to worksites to defend workers gets restricted; workers can trade one of four annual leave weeks for money to stay on the job; observance of statutory holidays can be changed; and stricter proof of illness in order to take sick-day leave will apply if revisions to New Zealand’s labour law takes effect.
“Unfair dismissal changes are just the tip of the iceberg,” said Kelly, citing other draconian provisions of the proposed legislation, including cuts in entitlement, meal breaks, union education funding, and axing the Pay and Employment Equity Unit of government. “To make matters worse, we believe government will also make it more difficult for the Employment Court to question the reason why any worker has been dismissed.”
The country’s Labour Party had introduced legislation to repeal the 90-day probationary law. That party will now coalesce with the Green Party and the Maori Party to attempt to block the Nationals anti-worker agenda. But the biggest voice expected to halt the labour law roll backs will be the nation’s 400,000 trade unionists who will work tediously through their unions to block these spurious changes to labour law.