Back to the Bad Old Days?

When discussing industrial relations much is made of the ”bad old days” in the 1970s and 1980s when industrial unrest was at a particularly high level and major projects could suffer long delays as a result. What is often forgotten is the other side of the bad old days – the Muldoon National government's use of legislation to deal with pretty much any dispute that gained political prominence or which could be used for a bit of pre-election union bashing. Labour was not entirely innocent of these tactics either, the Harbour Pilotage Emergency Act 1974 comes to mind. However compared to Muldoon Labour weren’t really in the game. Apart from virtually constant wage regulation there was the legislation on union membership ballots and especially those bits of it intended to make balloting virtually impossible-the excuse used to make the Clerical Workers’ Union compulsorily voluntary just before an election - and the Whangarei Refinery Expansion Projects Disputes Act 1984 to force a return to work in a long running dispute at a major oil refinery construction project. Threats to legislate and threats to declare a state of emergency under the Public Safety Conservation Act 1932 were used by the National Government on several occasions.

One positive thing that can be said for the ECA, and which was also true for the ERA during Labour’s period in government, was that once a legislative model was developed the government stood back and left the parties to sort things out for themselves. The epithet “Sideline Stan” might not have been intended to be complimentary when describing a former minister of labour but it pretty much summed up the approach of governments for two decades. It was an approach that removed special pleading and parties attempting to resort to one-sided political-legislative solutions to get their own way. One might not have liked the law but it operated as the law should operate. Legislative intervention during this period was confined to reforms based on genuine problems and aimed at a general solution – one technical amendment only to the ECA and amendments to the ERA focussed on matters such as clarifying the scope of good faith. Even the more focussed reforms such as transfer of undertakings and rest breaks were of application to broad groups of workers.

The Key National government has abandoned this approach and the law is again prey to special bidding and the interests of National’s mates. Generally this legislation is being passed not because of need but either to solve, largely imaginary, short term issues or for pure political benefit. To wit:

• The Jackson-Warner Brothers appeasement Act: neither needed or desirable. The objectives wanted by these actors (term used deliberately) were easily achievable under existing law.
• The abandoned Bill (although now in the ER Amendment Bill) to remove rest breaks for workers because civil aviation would apparently come to a standstill last year if it wasn’t passed. I have been away so I might have missed the chaos!
  
• Proposed amendments to the PG provisions: not needed as the law is perfectly satisfactory. Seems to have been placed in the ER Bill, following a very dodgy piece of DoL “research”, for no other reason than to pander to the misunderstandings of small employers who can’t be bothered to understand basic employment law.
• Union access provisions: promised by National but drafted to allow delay to access to undermine both union membership and bargaining.

Labour law now seems to be open to the highest bidder and the loudest right-wing voice – and bugger the workers who are now locked out of the process. John Key’s collaborative approach was pretty short-lived.