Fenton: Workers deserve fair treatment
new-zealand-labour-party
Thu May 06 2010 12:00:00 GMT+1200 (New Zealand Standard Time)
Fenton: Workers deserve fair treatment
Thursday, 6 May 2010, 3:33 pm
Speech: New Zealand Labour Party
Darien Fenton
Associate Spokesperson for Labour Issues
5 May 2010 Speech
Workers deserve fair treatment
Speech moving the Employment Relations (Statutory Minimum Redundancy Entitlements) Amendment Bill.
It is a privilege to introduce the first reading of this bill, and at the appropriate time I intend to move that the bill be considered by the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee.
In the past year, sixty thousand workers have lost their jobs. For each of these workers, this is a personal tragedy. Every one of them has faced the awful impact and humiliation redundancy has on them and their families.
How they cope will differ. Those who are union members will be better off, because most of them are likely to have some kind of redundancy protection in their agreements.
But thousands of others, like Warehouse Supervisor Rob Highsted, who has worked his company for 20 years until he was made redundant just this week have been left with absolutely nothing.
An estimated 80% of working New Zealanders have no redundancy protections written into their employment agreement. For these New Zealanders, losing their job can mean they have no way to pay their mortgage or support themselves and their families while they search for new work.
This is because there are no requirements in New Zealand law for minimum redundancy notice and compensation.
The need for a fair system of redundancy protection has become more urgent over the last year as more people lose their jobs and replacement jobs are harder to find. I’ve been hearing from laid-off workers who have no redundancy notice and pay, leaving them struggling to pay their mortgages and support their families and I’m sure other members have heard from them too.
The bill would provide all working New Zealanders with basic redundancy protection to help tide them over between jobs.
It is based on recommendations from the 2008 report of the Public Advisory Group on Restructuring and Redundancy, who advised the Government to consider introducing minimum redundancy protections for all workers.
This Group was established in 2007 to examine the adequacy of redundancy laws and provisions in New Zealand workplaces. The Group was an independent body established to provide advice to the government and included representatives from the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions and Business New Zealand.
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The Advisory Group recommended options for addressing gaps in and issues with existing laws and policy provisions.
The first recommendation of the Advisory Group was:
That the government should consider the introduction of a statutory requirement for redundancy compensation and other entitlements incorporating the following features:
a) notice of redundancy termination to the affected worker
b) compensation based on length of service
c) a maximum level of statutory compensation, and
d) provision of redundancy support and other active labour market mechanisms to affected workers and organisations.
Unfortunately, the Minister of Labour allowed this very extensive and well researched report to languish on her desk for twelve months and then threw it in the bin.
This bill amends the Employment Relations Act by inserting a new Part 6E (after section 69ZH) entitled “Statutory minimum redundancy entitlements”
The minimum entitlements conferred upon employees by this Part apply to an employee who has been in a continuous employment relationship with an employer for 1 calendar year or more.
Within 12 months the Minister of Labour would be required to conduct a public education campaign to inform employers and employees of the minimum entitlements conferred by this Part; and report to the House of Representatives within 6 months of the conclusion of that campaign as to its details, including an independent evaluation of its effectiveness.
The minimum entitlements that employees would receive as a result of this new Part would be:
(a) notice of dismissal of no less than 4 weeks; and
(b) compensation for redundancy in the amount of 4 weeks' remuneration for the first full year of the employee’s continuous employment with the employer; and
(c) further compensation for redundancy in the amount of 2 weeks’ remuneration for each subsequent full or partial year of the employees’ continuous employment with the employer, up to a maximum entitlement of 26 weeks’ remuneration.
New Zealand workers are among the cheapest and the easiest in the world to sack. We are nearly alone in the developed world in having no redundancy protections in law, apart from the USA. Last year, the Australian Federal Government introduced generous redundancy protections because they’re serious about protecting working families through the recession.
We keep talking about wanting to catch up with Australia, but the government seems unwilling to take any notice of their good ideas. Take the hundreds of skilled NZ engineers, who were dumped from their jobs with Australian Company Transfield with no redundancy pay. If these workers had been in Australia, Transfield would have been required by law to pay at least the compensation proposed in my bill. It doesn’t make sense to me that a company can treat their workers one way in their home country and differently in another country, but unfortunately, they do.
Mr Speaker, this issue isn’t just some abstract notion that I’ve dreamed up. I’ve advocated for workers who have redundancy compensation and those who don’t and I’ve seen first hand how devastating that can be.
I’ve been made redundant, my husband’s been made redundant twice and I’ve had to make some of my own staff redundant, so I have a good idea of what it feels like from all sides. Redundancy pay doesn’t make up for the loss of a job. But the important thing is being left with a feeling of dignity and respect.
Being laid off without notice and redundancy compensation is terrible. Not only does your job disappear, there are still bills to pay, kids to feed and the huge uncertainty of whether another job can be found.
This bill is about giving families some breathing space, time to pay the bills and some time to find other work.
Redundancy can happen to anyone. We’re talking about workers in all categories of occupations, from the low paid and vulnerable to the highly skilled.
One of the many emails on this bill I received just this week :
I work in IT and I was made redundant due to the economic downturn. The employment contract I had did not have any redundancy clause in it. I was told this news two weeks before the Christmas break, looking for work over this time was next to impossible.
__
After four months, this worker has a new job, but she’s now earning less than 1/3 of what she used to. She lost her house and all of her savings.
Layoffs happen to well paid workers too, but normally, they get suitcases of money. Former Telecom CEO received an $1.8million payout, Skycity CEO Evan Davies was given a $1.77 million golden handshake David Houldsworth from Hellaby Holdings got half a million and Craig Norgate left Fonterra with around $1.5 million.
If it’s good enough for them, I don’t think the modest provisions in this bill are too much to ask after years of loyal service.
This bill should go to select committee for a proper discussion and consideration so we can genuinely decide if it’s fair that Kiwi workers are being laid off through no fault of their own with no basic financial protection to tide them over in the hard times between jobs.
This afternoon the Minister of Labour cried crocodile tears when I gave her examples of the terrible circumstances of real New Zealand workers. She said redundancy is never easy, but so far she and her government have done nothing about it.
Well, today they have the chance.
I’m urging the government to do the right thing today by Kiwi workers by supporting my bill to Select Committee.
ENDS
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