ACC changes hurt Hawke’s Bay seasonal workers
new-zealand-labour-party
Thu Feb 25 2010 13:00:00 GMT+1300 (New Zealand Daylight Time)
ACC changes hurt Hawke’s Bay seasonal workers
Thursday, 25 February 2010, 9:57 am
Press Release: New Zealand Labour Party
**ACC changes hurt Hawke’s Bay seasonal workers
**
Changes to ACC legislation will badly hurt Hawke’s Bay seasonal workers and could act as a disincentive for people to undertake seasonal work, says Labour MP Rick Barker.
“Changes to the Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation Act will change fundamentally the method by which earnings related compensation is calculated,” Rick Barker said. “Currently the legislation provides a calculation by 52 weeks or the number of weeks actually worked. For seasonal workers, the number of weeks actually worked is very important because they have no control over the fact their work is not continuous.
“The nature of work in Hawke’s Bay means the base of our economy is seasonal in the agricultural, freezing, horticultural and processing industries. Many workers move from thinning, pruning, picking and packing, and the general experience is they get about 40 weeks of work in any year.
“Labour changed the law during its last term to provide for a calculation based on the number of weeks worked rather than the previous system of 52, but if this change goes through and the law moves back to how it unfairly treated workers historically, the new calculation will mean that a worker injured will have their 40 weeks of work (it could be less) divided by 52,” Rick Barker said.
“This would provide an annual salary of wages divided by 40 over 52, resulting in an unfair amount of compensation. The change is completely unreasonable.
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“It is no fault of seasonal workers that they cannot get 52 weeks work per year. The seasonal nature of our Hawke’s Bay industries requires seasonal workers. Without these workers the thinning, pruning, picking, packing, agricultural contracting and processing of our produce would simply not happen.”
Rick Barker said he and other MPs lobbied strenuously to have these provisions changed in the ACC legislation to recognise the nature of seasonal work in provincial New Zealand.
“Having 52 weeks in the year as a means of determining weekly compensation reflects the situation in Auckland and Wellington where work is continuous around the year. I cannot accept workers in Hawke’s Bay being treated worse than those in other centres. National’s changes to will adversely affect many thousands of workers in our community.”
Under current legislation: If you have 40 weeks seasonal work earning $20,000, divide $20,000 by 40 = $500 x 80% = $400 per week (gross).
Under the new proposal of dividing by 52 weeks of the year, $20,000 divided by 52 weeks = $384.60 x 80% = $307 per week (gross).
Net difference: $93 a week worse off.
ENDS
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