by Keith Locke
Parliament’s Transport and Industrial Relations Select Committee has allowed only a very short timeframe for people to make submissions on the Employment Relations Amendment Bill (No 2). Submissions close on 13 September.
If it is passed in its current form, this Bill will:
- extend the fire at will provisions under which employees can be dismissed without reason the first 90 days of their employment to all businesses (clause 12)
- restrict the ability of employees to talk to their union representatives about what is going on in their workplaces (clauses 5 & 6)
- expand the circumstances in which the dismissal of an employee can be justified, and allow employers to use unfair processes in dismissing employees (clause 14)
- allow employers to attempt to undermine collective bargaining by bypassing employees’ elected representatives (clause 9)
- remove the requirement that a sacked employee getting his or her job back should be the first priority if he or she is found to have been unfairly dismissed (clause 15)
I hope you can find the time to submit in opposition to these proposals in the Bill. The NZ Council of Trade Unions has provided a handy submission framework for making submissions via them on-line. Please amend it to stress the points you think are most important, and add more detail and things from your personal experiences and knowledge if you have the time.
And remember the deadline – Monday 13 September, 2010.
Published in Economy, Work, & Welfare by Keith Locke on Mon, August 30th, 2010
Tags: employment relations amendment bill, Fairness at Work, fire at will, industrial relations
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on the trolls and those who are unable to keep on topic
The owner of the small business wonders why the annual pertrol bill is thousands of dollars above the previous year, so gets the petrol station security film and finds out his employee is regularly stealing petrol.
With factual evidence that the employee is stealing petrol for non-business vehicles, he is sacked.
Because of a technicality in the sacking (wasn’t given a chance to say why he was stealing) the employment court makes the small employer pay $5000 to the thief, on top of the thousands of dollars of petrol.
The court acknowledged the thief would have been sacked anyway.
The current system gives bonuses of thosuands of dollars to criminals, and makes the victims pay penalties of thousands of dollars.
And what sort of effect does the victimisation of small employers by the court have on encouraging small businesses to employ more people?
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No, that’s what happens when you *don’t* follow the system.
By your logic, deaths caused by drunk driving are the fault of the police.
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rimu – why don’t you take an extreme false position and say it’s my logic – oh…you did.
You are defending making victims pay thousands of dollars to criminals.
That’s really screwed up.
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Awwww, there there. Watch for the
they are usually a hint that people are not all that serious…
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Whatever the merits of the Employment Court ruling, the subject is msking submissions on the Bill is it not. As an chiarperson of the governance group of a medium sized NGO (turnover $1M, 15 FTE)and thus legally the employer under the ERA I see no need for the 90-day trial, the one day sick note and to prevent my staff meeting their union official on site. My submissions as an employer will be to say the changes are not needed and not wanted.
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