The nature of the reforms announced by the Minister of Labour yesterday are encapsulated in the proposal for "Removing the 30-day rule that forces non-union members to take union terms and conditions". This piece of dissimulation typifies these reforms-one's heart bleeds for those workers "forced" to accept inferior working conditions. But opps doesn't the Act actually allow such workers to also agree to any terms not inconsistent with the collective agreement - such as higher wages. Silly me, it appears that workers are to be freed from the obligation to accept decent conditions to that they can immediately be put on to whatever inferior conditions the employer determines.
What is quite clear is that the National Government and its Parliamentary allies are launching an attack on the most vulnerable groups of workers, the young and the precariously employed. The reduction in the minimum wage for under 18 year olds signaled an opening shot of this new campaign and yesterday's announcement carries on the offensive. I will look at the reforms in more detail later but some points might be highlighted:
(a) the 6A exemption for SMEs of course leaves the employees of such firms even more vulnerable to employment insecurity and cuts in working conditions. No doubt also many larger firms will be restructuring to take advantage of the SME exception. It also seems likely that the implied warranty against unreasonably increasing employee entitlements will have a chilling effect on improving employee terms and conditions as existing employers seek to avoid legal risk.
(b)The changes to collective bargaining laws are likely to further undermine collective bargaining and provide employers with options to walk away from bargaining. How these changes will affect the bargaining facilitation and determination provisions of the Act is not explained but is unlikely to be in a positive way. One suspects that these changes may have some impact in the state sector by enabling state sector employers to stonewall bargaining with the still large state sector unions and then to seek a declaration that bargaining has ended. It was after all a state sector case that prevented an employer's attempt to declare that bargaining had ended.
(c) The rest and meal break provisions, one might recall, were introduced into Parliament some years ago to prevent the countries airports grinding to a halt along with other overstated and over-hyped consequences of allowing workers proper rests. The country has got along well without these reforms so the motive for them is obscure. Unless, possibly, it is the provisions in the Bill that effectively allow employers to effectively eliminate breaks or to require employees to remain at work during breaks that the Government wishes to advance.
Showing posts with label New Zealand. Show all posts
Showing posts with label New Zealand. Show all posts
Wednesday, October 31, 2012
Sunday, September 18, 2011
How Inflexible is New Zealand's Labour Market?
Last week Andrew Scott-Howman in his Workface blog posted on New Zealand's ranking in the Global Competitiveness Report published by the World Economic Forum. This body is a conservative think tank whose New Zealand partners are Business New Zealand and The New Zealand Institute. The latter has an excellent commentary on the overall New Zealand report on its website. This post will focus purely on the Labour Market Efficiency "pillar" of the report on which New Zealand ranked 11th internationally, ahead of Australia at 13th. This score is based on a measurement of nine factors which are (with rankings in relation to 142 countries- the higher the place the greater the efficiency):
The mixing of hard and soft data in this way to produce an overall figure seems somewhat dodgy at best (and the World Bank figures are themselves not without problems). This is particularly apparent in relation to the outlier ranking of hiring and firing costs. This figure seems to reflect employer prejudice and misunderstanding rather than anything resembling the reality of employment protection in New Zealand. By way of comparison for example the OECD in 2008 ranked New Zealand as having the 4th least strict employment protection!
One particularly interesting result from the Executive survey was the ranking of "restrictive labour relations" in the overall survey results. It was ranked 6th of 11 issues with a weighted score of 8.9 compared to 22.7 for the major concern, "inadequate suply of infrastructure." In terms of the labour market the top concern was an "inadequately educated labour force" in 4th pace with a score of 11.5. Interestingly Australian executives ranked "restrictive labour relations"as their top concern with a score of 16.6. Given the heat of the debate on this topic in Australia at the moment one wonder if this reflects a response to the hot topic of the moment rather than reality - the OECD ranking for Australia was 5th.
Such reports are interesting but should be read with a considerable grain of salt. New Zealand's 11th overall ranking indicates a very efficient labour market even without the distortion introduced by the survey evidence
- Cooperation in labour-employer relations (13th)
- Flexibility of wage determination (26th)
- Rigidity of employment index (10th)
- Hiring and firing costs (86th)
- Redundancy costs measured by weeks of salary required to be paid (1st)
- Pay and productivity (34th)
- Reliance on professional management (2nd)
- Brain drain (82nd)
- Woman in labour force: ration to men (43rd)
The mixing of hard and soft data in this way to produce an overall figure seems somewhat dodgy at best (and the World Bank figures are themselves not without problems). This is particularly apparent in relation to the outlier ranking of hiring and firing costs. This figure seems to reflect employer prejudice and misunderstanding rather than anything resembling the reality of employment protection in New Zealand. By way of comparison for example the OECD in 2008 ranked New Zealand as having the 4th least strict employment protection!
One particularly interesting result from the Executive survey was the ranking of "restrictive labour relations" in the overall survey results. It was ranked 6th of 11 issues with a weighted score of 8.9 compared to 22.7 for the major concern, "inadequate suply of infrastructure." In terms of the labour market the top concern was an "inadequately educated labour force" in 4th pace with a score of 11.5. Interestingly Australian executives ranked "restrictive labour relations"as their top concern with a score of 16.6. Given the heat of the debate on this topic in Australia at the moment one wonder if this reflects a response to the hot topic of the moment rather than reality - the OECD ranking for Australia was 5th.
Such reports are interesting but should be read with a considerable grain of salt. New Zealand's 11th overall ranking indicates a very efficient labour market even without the distortion introduced by the survey evidence
Friday, August 26, 2011
Employment Law and the Election
Apparently today is the first day of the three month 'regulated period' during which political parties are required to spend their own money on electioneering. With a little imagination that makes today a good day to begin commenting on the implications of the election for the future of employment law.
Three years ago all seemed reasonably quiet on the employment front. National's minimal employment policy fitted onto a single, generously spaced, A4 page. Business New Zealand were making much of how change was not required and a period of legal stability was required. Labour had, on employment policy as much else, run out of steam. I was even rash enough to suggest that some broad degree of consensus might have emerged on the structure of employment law. This opinion was based on the fact that the ERA had changed little and that the ECA labour market reforms remained firmly in place. Indeed, from an industrial relations perspective, the ECA changes had been further entrenched.
Rash I might have been, but not stupid. As a good lawyer and an academic I was careful to qualify this view with a few "perhaps" and "it may be"s and so on. While my prediction did look justifiable for a while, it soon became apparent that I had allowed my natural optimism to override my cynical common sense. One likes to think law reform is based on evidence and reasoned opinion. I had of course temporarily overlooked that this is politics where evidence and common sense always take second place to ideology, the prejudice of a party's supporters and short term expediency. Hence of course the 90 day trial periods were quickly extended to all workplaces and s103A amended to favour employers in personal grievance cases to an even greater degree than was previously the case. In what can only have been a purely instinctual kneejerk response, union access to employees was limited.
In the case of all three reforms there was no evidence of any 'mischief' that needed reform. Indeed the law was working perfectly satisfactorily in all cases. That is if you believe that employees are citizens and that they should enjoy basic protections in their employment. Sort of like the owners of businesses, only considerably less! Of course, if you take the view that employees are commodities and disposable, the perspective is different. However in a democracy there should be a balance of rights and the ERA had achieved that, but in a manner that was both cautious and conservative. The New Zealand labour market, since 1991,has been, and remains, one of the least regulated among the OECD countries. In 2008 we had the 4th least restrictive level of employment protection, not that one would know it given the cries of woe from business lobbyists.
This election promises to be more interesting. National's far right and ACT clearly wish to return employment law to their rather strange vision of a 19th century utopia, the mainstream of National seem to base its policy on small town Chamber of Commerce anecdotes, and Labour shows signs of recovering the soul it sold in the 1980s!
All in all it should be interesting and further blogs will emerge when policies are announced.
Three years ago all seemed reasonably quiet on the employment front. National's minimal employment policy fitted onto a single, generously spaced, A4 page. Business New Zealand were making much of how change was not required and a period of legal stability was required. Labour had, on employment policy as much else, run out of steam. I was even rash enough to suggest that some broad degree of consensus might have emerged on the structure of employment law. This opinion was based on the fact that the ERA had changed little and that the ECA labour market reforms remained firmly in place. Indeed, from an industrial relations perspective, the ECA changes had been further entrenched.
Rash I might have been, but not stupid. As a good lawyer and an academic I was careful to qualify this view with a few "perhaps" and "it may be"s and so on. While my prediction did look justifiable for a while, it soon became apparent that I had allowed my natural optimism to override my cynical common sense. One likes to think law reform is based on evidence and reasoned opinion. I had of course temporarily overlooked that this is politics where evidence and common sense always take second place to ideology, the prejudice of a party's supporters and short term expediency. Hence of course the 90 day trial periods were quickly extended to all workplaces and s103A amended to favour employers in personal grievance cases to an even greater degree than was previously the case. In what can only have been a purely instinctual kneejerk response, union access to employees was limited.
In the case of all three reforms there was no evidence of any 'mischief' that needed reform. Indeed the law was working perfectly satisfactorily in all cases. That is if you believe that employees are citizens and that they should enjoy basic protections in their employment. Sort of like the owners of businesses, only considerably less! Of course, if you take the view that employees are commodities and disposable, the perspective is different. However in a democracy there should be a balance of rights and the ERA had achieved that, but in a manner that was both cautious and conservative. The New Zealand labour market, since 1991,has been, and remains, one of the least regulated among the OECD countries. In 2008 we had the 4th least restrictive level of employment protection, not that one would know it given the cries of woe from business lobbyists.
This election promises to be more interesting. National's far right and ACT clearly wish to return employment law to their rather strange vision of a 19th century utopia, the mainstream of National seem to base its policy on small town Chamber of Commerce anecdotes, and Labour shows signs of recovering the soul it sold in the 1980s!
All in all it should be interesting and further blogs will emerge when policies are announced.
Saturday, July 9, 2011
NZ Labour Law Association Inaugural Conference
The New Zealand Labour Law Association Inc will, in association with Victoria University's School of Law, hold its inaugural conference on Friday 2nd December this year. The final programme is yet to be confirmed and papers may be submitted for possible presentation. One theme will be issues from Australia. Prof Andrew Stewart of the University of Adelaide will provide an account of current developments in Australian law and the Fair Work Act and Prof Richard Johnstone from Griffith will speak on the proposed Australian model OSH law.
You can register online and find further information at http://www.victoria.ac.nz/law/about/events/2011/labour-law-conf.aspx
You can register online and find further information at http://www.victoria.ac.nz/law/about/events/2011/labour-law-conf.aspx
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
