Contents Page: NZJER, 2014, 39(1)
Name

Title

Page
NumberFelicity Lamm, Erling Editorial
Rasmussen and Rupert
Tipples
RaymondMarkey,Candice Harris, Herman
Knudsen, Jens Lind andDavid Williamson

1

Exploring employee participation
and work environment in hotels:
Case studies from Denmark and
New ZealandErlingRasmussen, The major parties: National’s andMichael Fletcher and Labour’s employment relations
Brian Hannam
policies
Julienne Molineaux and The Minor Parties:
Peter Skilling
Priorities and Power

33-51

and Are vulnerable workers
protected in New Zealand?

Nigel Haworth
Brenda Pilott

and Commentary – The New ZealandPublic Sector: Moving Beyond
New Public Management?

reallyVenkataraman Nilakant, Research Note: Conceptualising
Bernard Walker, Kate Adaptive Resilience using
van Heugen, Rosemar Grounded Theory
Baird and Herb de Vries

Ross Wilson

21-32

Policies,Danaë Anderson
Tipples

Sir Geoffrey Palmer

2-20

Eulogy for the Rt Hon Sir Owen
Woodhouse

52-67

68-78

79-86

87-91

Obituary
92-93

New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 39(1): 1

Editorial
This issue shows the diverse range of employment relations issues in New Zealand.
We begin with Markey et al.’s paper which reports on research into employee participation
and well-being in the New Zealand hospitality sector and then compares it to the famous‘Danish Model’. While Danish formal employee participation structures are clearly wellembedded, this article shows that there is a more complex picture with several direct forms ofparticipation available in New Zealand hospitality firms. However, the article also indicatesthat some of the direct forms of participation can be associated with negative well-being
effects.
This issue also includes two articles on the employment relations policies of the politicalparties contesting the September general election. As the articles were finished before the last
week of campaigning, we will soon know the election outcome and a great deal more about
the new government’s plans for employment relations. In spite of the fact that there areconsiderable differences between the parties regarding employment relations policies andseveral new policy proposals on offer, it is fair to say that this has been a rather unusualelection campaign and little has been done to facilitate an in-depth debate of employment
relations policy differences.
The next two articles were originally presented as part of a special symposium at the 2014
AIRAANZ (Association of Industrial Relations Academics in Australia and New Zealand)
conference in Melbourne. Several more articles emerging from that symposium are expectedto feature in New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 40(1). We would like to remind
readers that the February 2015 AIRAANZ conference is in Auckland (see:http://airaanz2015.org.nz ).
This issue ends on a sombre note. First, the Nilikant et al. article deals with organisational
resilience in the aftermath of the Christchurch earthquakes. The devastating earthquakes have
had dire consequences for many people and organisations but the article seeks to distil theimportant lessons learnt in terms of surviving and prosperous organisations.
Second, we pay tribute to Sir Owen Woodhouse, the architect of New Zealand’s unique nofaults system of compensation for injury. Obituaries from Sir Geoffrey Palmer and Mr Ross
Wilson have been re-printed with kind permission from the Safeguard Magazine.
Felicity Lamm, Erling Rasmussen & Rupert Tipples
Editors, New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations

1

New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 39(1): 2-20

Exploring employee participation and work environment in hotels:
Case studies from Denmark and New Zealand
RAYMOND MARKEY,* CANDICE HARRIS,** HERMAN KNUDSEN,*** JENSLIND**** and DAVID WILLIAMSON*****
Abstract
We explore the relative impact of direct and representative forms of participation on quality of the work
environment, based on multi-method case studies of two hotels each in New Zealand and Denmark. The
degree of direct participation is higher at the New Zealand hotels, yet, workload and stress is higher thanin the Danish ones. This confirms literature that questions whether participation is always beneficial to
the work environment. On the other hand, representative forms of participation appear to offer greater
opportunities for a better quality of work environment (QWE) since Danish employees in this study
enjoy greater influence through collective bargaining and cooperation committees, and experience lessworkload stress than the New Zealanders.

Keywords
Quality of work environment, employee participation, HRM in hotels, direct participation, representative
participation

Introduction
It is well described in the literature that employee participation is closely linked to the quality of work
environment (QWE) or related concepts, such as employee well-being or job satisfaction. Whilst thebrunt of research suggests that participation plays a positive role in the work environment, there are alsofindings that indicate a negative association. It was with this in mind that this comparative study ofDanish and New Zealand workplaces in the hotel sector was undertaken as part of a wider project
including workplaces from a range of sectors (Knudsen & Markey, 2014). Our aim was to investigate
the nature of the relationship between employee participation and work environment quality throughcase studies in a number of workplaces. The study analysed both direct and representative forms ofparticipation.

*

Prof Raymond Markey, Director of the Centre for Workforce Futures and Professor of Employment Relations – Departmentof Marketing and Management, Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia**
Candice Harris, Associate Prof, Department of Human Resource Management and Employment Relations, Auckland
University of Technology, New Zealand***Prof Herman Knudsen, Department of Development and Planning, Aalborg University, Denmark****
Prof Jens Lind, Department of Sociology and Social Work, Aalborg University, Denmark*****
David Williamson, Senior Lecturer, Department of Hospitality, Tourism and Events, Auckland University ofTechnology, New Zealand2New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 39(1): 2-20
The field of comparative employment relations is generally underdeveloped (Barry & Wilkinson, 2011).
One of the most common approaches is through comparison of employment relations themes acrossdifferent countries; some consider a number of themes (Bean, 1985; Eaton, 2000), but the “extent ofcomparison … is patchy or underdeveloped” (Barry & Wilkinson, 2011: 3) and the themes broad andnecessarily selective. Other comparisons focus on single issues, such as trade unions, but these arenormally institutionally based (Fairbrother & Yates, 2003; Frege & Kelly, 2004; Verma & Kochan,
2004; Frege, 2007). Very few comparative studies focus on non-institutional themes at theorganisational, rather than general level, through case studies that allow detailed analysis.
The rationale for these national case study comparisons was founded on important similarities, but
contrasting systems of employee participation. New Zealand and Denmark are of similar size andindustry structure. Some critical contributors to the work environment, notably work/life balance andoccupational health and safety (OHS) problems, including stress, have recently been major policy
concerns in both countries. However, the range and depth of representative employee participation isgreater in Denmark than New Zealand, and a comparison allows consideration of the possible impact of
this variable.
The article is structured as follows. First, it presents a review of the literature on employee participation,
followed by a brief section on how participation interacts with work environment quality. The next
section deals with main features of industrial relations in New Zealand and Denmark respectively, with a
special view on the hotel sector. This is followed by a section on methodology, which also includes abrief description of the four case hotels. Subsequently, the findings of the study are presented; thisincludes data regarding participation and work environment, and then associations between the twodatasets are explored. Finally, the conclusion highlights the main findings and discusses these against
relevant parts of the literature. Our main focus is to establish whether various forms of participation
impact positively or negatively on the quality of the work environment.

Employee participation
The concept ‘employee participation’ is a generic term covering a diversity of practices. These include
suggestion schemes, team briefings, job autonomy, staff meetings, works councils, trade union
representation, collective bargaining, and employee representation at board level. What binds them
together are basically two shared characteristics:a) participation provides opportunities that enable employees to influence decision-making inorganisations, andb) participation is played out in a decision-making context dominated by management prerogative(Knudsen, 1995; Wall & Lischeron, 1977).
As formulated by Pateman (1970: 68): “The whole point about industrial participation is that it involves
a modification, to greater or lesser degree, of the orthodox authority structure, namely one where
decision making is the ‘prerogative’ of management, in which workers play no part.”
Below this umbrella definition, a number of dimensions of participation and influence can beconceptualised. Blyton and Turnbull (2004: 255-56) define the depth of participation as a continuum3New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 39(1): 2-20
stretching from “no involvement” to “receiving information”, to “joint consultation” to “joint decisionmaking” to “employee control”. Employee control may be delegated by management, usually at task
level, but it may also be control, exercised against the will of the employer in the way work is carriedout or, more rarely, through radical collective action, such as picketing or occupation of the workplace.
Pateman (1970) distinguished between “pseudo”, “partial”, and “full” participation. Pseudo participation
is linked with management techniques, which, even though involving consultation of employees, aims to
persuade employees to accept decisions that, in reality, have already been made. Partial participation
occurs in situations where employees are able to influence decisions, yet do not have the same power as
management. Finally, full participation is defined by Pateman as a constellation where the parties
involved have equal power. Therefore, to Pateman, participation in capitalist organisations is either
pseudo or partial.
The notion of pseudo participation is similar to Heller’s (1998a: 149-50) identification of “inauthentic”
and “manipulative” forms of participation that actually offer little real influence. However, it isextremely difficult to determine, in practice, whether specific forms of participation are pseudo or not. It
is possible that management initiatives, labelled participation, are framed to make employees accept
decisions that have already been made. Yet, they also may give knowledge resources that empower
employees to influence future decisions; or the “pseudo” participation may result in ideas and decisions
that were not originally part of management’s plans. It is certainly relevant to attempt to determine
whether a given practice of participation is primarily an instrument for furthering employee influence or,
first and foremost, a management instrument aimed at controlling the behaviour and performance of
employees. Most forms of participation, however, include elements of both.
This discussion can be continued by drawing on the distinction between various types of participation
offered by Hyman and Mason (1995), namely industrial democracy (ID), employee participation (EP),and employee involvement (EI). Leaving ID aside, as it is equivalent to Pateman’s “full” participationand has only been practised under exceptional circumstances in capitalist society, the central distinctionis then between EP and EI. According to Hyman and Mason, EP is based on rights granted to workers by
way of legislation or collective bargaining. Further, EP is essentially collective and indirect since it isplayed out through union representatives, health and safety representatives or other employee
representatives. In contrast, EI is employer-driven and aimed at stimulating motivation and commitment
among employees as a means to increasing organisational efficiency. Participation practised as EI is
direct, exercised by the individual employee or the team. Returning to Pateman (1970), one may say
that, whereas EP mainly corresponds to ‘partial participation’, many of the schemes seen within EI, forinstance team briefings, quality circles and intensified communication processes, seem to qualify as‘pseudo participation’. Thus, the forms of participation in the EI basket are of a character where
employees are granted influence, not because it is considered a value in itself, but as a bi-product ofefficiency considerations. A further distinction between EP and EI is that, while the former primarily
deals with issues at a tactical or strategic level, the latter almost exclusively is confined to theoperational or task level; the corresponding distinction made by Pateman (1970) is between “higher andlower level management decisions”. To conclude this discussion, EI and EP not only differ regarding
form, the former practising direct participation, the latter indirect, but also regarding scope, “that is therange of decisions which employees or their representatives participate in” (Blyton & Turnbull, 2004:
257).

4

New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 39(1): 2-20
From the points made above, it follows that employee participation may be linked to fundamentallydifferent driving forces and rationales. Knudsen (1995) lists three main rationales: industrial democracy,social integration and organisational efficiency. Industrial democracy is historically connected to thelabour movement and socialist reformers, although full industrial democracy has never been fully
achieved. An aim to democratise, or at least humanise, work has also been present in human relations
and socio-technical traditions (Heller, 1998b), and in Scandinavian work development programmes
since the 1960s (Hvid & Hasle, 2003).
Social integration is the rationale that has driven state interventions to introduce or extend participation
through rights enshrined in law. With the aims of avoiding industrial unrest and open class warfare, andweakening radical currents in the labour movement, concessions were granted to workers and tradeunions. It was demonstrated by Ramsay (1977) that participation has historically surged and waned incycles as employers and governments took initiatives to pacify assertive labour movements when they
were strengthened by economic conditions.
Organisational efficiency is the third rationale, already mentioned earlier. This rationale underlies the
EI-type, employer-driven participation. As precisely formulated by Blyton and Turnbull (2004: 258) it
aims at “increased worker commitment, higher job satisfaction and motivation, and reduced resistance tochange”. However, in spite of the clear distinctions between the diverse rationales, specific forms ofparticipation may well contain elements from all three of these. For instance, works councils or joint
consultation committees may give employees a say (democratisation), be a forum for cooperation andconflict avoidance or resolution (social integration), as well as an instrument to raise commitment andreduce resistance to change (organisational efficiency).
It was the ambition of the study to identify and assess the forms, scope and depth (Blyton & Turnbull,2004) of all employee participation taking place in the studied workplaces. For this purpose, employee
participation is defined as all forms through which employees take part in decisions regarding their job
and workplace. The degree or strength of participation is determined by its depth as well as its scope. As
mentioned above, depth may range from shallow to deeper through the mere reception of informationfrom management, to consultation and joint talks and negotiations, to self-determination at the deepest
level. Scope stretches from operational matters (related to the job/task), to tactical matters (related towork organisation, technology and pay systems), to strategic issues (related to company goals,
investment).
As to forms of participation, a key distinction was between direct, individual or team-based
participation, and indirect, or representative, participation. Within the first form, the degree of job
autonomy, or discretion granted to individual employees and/or teams of employees is a key ingredient.
Other elements of this form of participation include informal interactions with management andarrangements, such as appraisal interviews, quality circles and suggestion schemes (Marchington, 2005).
The second form is indirect participation through elected representatives, essentially participation of the
EP-type.

Employee participation and work environment quality
The concept of work environment is broad, embracing both the physical, social and organisationalsurroundings of work. It has its origin in Scandinavia where, from the 1970s, this concept largely
5New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 39(1): 2-20
replaced occupational health and safety (OHS), which was associated mainly with physical risks andhazards at work. In particular, the concept of psychosocial work environment, which denotes how job
demands and social structures and interactions in the organisation influence the psychological wellbeing of employees, opens up for a broad understanding of how people are affected by theiremployment, whether positively or negatively (Hvid & Hasle, 2003). This broader concept of QWE has
gained currency as the incidence and recognition of psychosocial workplace problems have increased,
particularly stress-related disease (Busck, Knudsen & Lind, 2010).
Research into the significance of representative participation, where safety representatives, safetycommittees and other joint committees are studied, appears to find a clearly positive connection between
participation and a good work environment (Walters & Frick, 2000; Walters & Nichols, 2007; Eaton &Nocerino, 2000; Nichols, Walters & Tasiran 2007). Walters and Frick’s (2000) comprehensive
international literature review concludes that participation resulting from the combined activity of these
representatives and committees with unionised employees and union support leads to fewer injuries atwork, and that the work environment is clearly better at workplaces with organised labour than without.
When it comes to direct participation’s effects on the work environment, research results are more
ambivalent. On the one hand, increased direct participation, in particular in the form of job autonomy,
allows employees to exert more influence on their working situation, enabling action against physicaland psychosocial threats in their work environment. The research of the ‘Karasek school’ demonstrates a
positive correlation between influence in the form of job control and the psychosocial work environment
as well as health (Karasek & Theorell, 1990; Eller, 2003). On the other hand, direct participation is often
introduced on the basis of the efficiency rationale, with the aim of intensifying work and making it moreproductive. In recent years, it has typically been associated with IT-systems benchmarking andcontrolling the performance of the individual (Andersen, Bramming & Nielsen, 2008). In a Norwegianstudy, Kalleberg, Nesheim and Olsen (2009) found that employees who are organised in teams havehigher stress levels than others, suggesting that positive effects of increased job autonomy usuallyassociated with team-work may be counteracted by new pressures built into the organisation of work.
North American studies of ‘high performance’ workplaces characterised by ‘lean’ or ‘flexible’
production and teamwork, at times, find a negative correlation between these elements of direct
participation and work environment quality, for instance as measured by the number of accidents.
Although increased direct participation may have some positive effects, the intensification of work may
eventually compromise these effects (Harrison & Legendre, 2003; Askenazy, 2001; Foley & Polanyi,2006).

Employee relations and employee participation in Denmark and New Zealand
Denmark and New Zealand are countries of similar population and economic structure, but they arecharacterised by significantly different employee relations systems, especially in relation to employee
participation. Representative employee participation may occur through trade unions, workplacecommittees of various kinds, and employee representation on boards of companies (Markey, Gollan,
Hodgkinson, Chouraqui & Veersma, 2001).
Comparing the basic structures of labour market regulation in Denmark and New Zealand, it is clear thatthe Danish system is based upon collective bargaining to a much higher degree than is the case in New
Zealand. In Denmark, most workers are covered by a national collective agreement, which also grants
6New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 39(1): 2-20
them the right to elect local union representatives (shop stewards) (Lind, 1995). Total coverage ofcollective bargaining in Denmark is 70-75 per cent of the workforce (LO, 2011; Visser, 2009), withnational and workplace level agreements. In comparison, collective bargaining coverage isapproximately 19 per cent in New Zealand where it is largely confined to the public sector (Blumenfeld,
2010). Danish union membership density is high, at about 70 per cent (Visser, 2009), compared with 20
per cent in New Zealand (Blumenfeld & Ryall, 2013).
Employment relations standards in the New Zealand system are based, to a greater extent, uponlegislation, which during the past two decades has been directed towards securing the rights of theindividual relating to minimum pay, leave and the like (Foster, Rasmussen & Coetzee, 2013; Geare, etal., 2014; Haworth, 2004). This leaves, at least in theory, a relatively stronger space for, and applicationof, HRM practices as the key mode of participation, i.e. a more individual and direct form of employee
participation in New Zealand than in Denmark.
Other forms of representative participation, apart from trade unions, include joint consultationcommittees in New Zealand, and works councils or cooperation committees in Denmark. Danish
legislation has also provided for employee representation on company boards since the early 1970s(Knudsen, 1995). Nevertheless, in both New Zealand and Denmark, the only form of legislatively
mandated workplace employee representation occurs through OHS committees.
Whilst both Denmark and New Zealand have legislation for OHS delegates, in New Zealand, this isquite recent and wider participative practices are not as well developed by employer/union agreement as
in Denmark with cooperation committees. Danish OHS representation was instigated by the Work
Environment Act 1975 (Knudsen, 1995). The threshold for establishment of Danish OHS committees is
35 employees, however, Danish enterprises with 10 or more employees must have employee work
environment representatives. The Danish committees’ jurisdiction includes the “planning andcoordination of health and safety activities in the enterprise” which could include work processes,
restructuring and technological change, although this only seems to occur in some enterprises.
The New Zealand Health and Safety in Employment Amendment Act 2002 obliges employers tonegotiate with their employees and any relevant union(s) to determine an employee participation system(Department of Labour, 2002; Hay, 2003). Businesses with more than 30 staff must have an employee
participation system, and parties to the employment relationship must cooperate in good faith to design,
implement, maintain and review a system that allows employees to participate in health and safety
matters (Department of Labour, 2002; Harris, 2011). The participation system for businesses with over
30 staff is usually through representatives on OHS committees (Lamm, 2010; Ravenswood, Harris,
Williamson & Markey, 2013). It should be noted that major reforms of New Zealand’s OHS legislation,
including worker representation and participation, are scheduled for 2015. In particular, the selection
and duties of worker representatives, the level of worker participation and the function of OHS
committees will be prescribed in a new set of regulations (Lamm, Rasmussen & Anderson, 2013a).
The fact that both the Danish and New Zealand OHS legislation require only medium-and-large-sizedbusinesses to have formal worker representation and participation in place raises a number of issues
regarding worker representation and participation within the small business sector. For example, thesmall business sectors in Denmark and New Zealand represent approximately 90 per cent of the businesspopulation and employs 60 per cent of the business population. This is a sizable proportion of employeeswith no legal entitlement to participatory mechanisms concerning their workplace health and safety7

New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 39(1): 2-20
(Lamm, Frick, Jamieson, Martin & Donnell, 2013b). Moreover, the Danish and New Zealand small
business sector have low trade union membership rates and low union density, and ipso facto trade union
involvement in OHS worker representation and participation in this sector is minimal. There is evidence
that workers in the small business sector are increasingly engaged in low paid, non-standard, insecure orprecarious work. Added to this mix is the fact that small workplaces are becoming more culturally andethnically diverse. Both of these features have the potential to create a working environment that
discourages formal worker representation and participation (Lamm, et al., 2013b).
The jurisdiction of New Zealand OHS committees is more specifically limited to OHS and hazard
prevention than in Denmark. However, a wide international literature argues that OSH committees of the
New Zealand variety have the potential to address issues beyond a narrow focus on hazard identificationand management (Bernard, 1995; Haynes, Boxall & Macky, 2005; Knudsen, 1995; Walters, Nichols,
Connor, Tasiran & Cam, 2005). In practice, it is difficult to separate a narrow focus on traditional healthand safety from work-life and other broad work environment issues, particularly involving the risingcoincidence of employee stress and longer working hours (Lamm, 2010) or the introduction of newtechnology or organisational change (Heller, 1998a).
Based on national collective agreements since 1947, Danish cooperation committees exist in enterprisesof 35 or more employees by agreement between the employer federation (DA) and the main union
federation (LO). Cooperation committees are forums for consultation over working conditions, training,
work organisation and especially technological and organisational change. Composed of equal numbersof employer and employee representatives, they cover a majority of private sector employees but mayvary in effectiveness (Knudsen, 1995). These committees offer an example of the three rationales forparticipation – democratisation, social integration and efficiency – operating together. In a recent New
Zealand survey, 40 per cent of employees reported coverage by similarly composed joint consultative
committees (JCCs). Nevertheless, these are not subject to a general agreement, and hence, vary greatly
in role and effectiveness, with employee representatives chosen by employers in over a quarter of
instances (Boxall, Haynes & Macky, 2007). One might expect New Zealand JCCs, therefore, to be
influenced to a lesser extent by the rationale of democratisation.
It is clear from this brief comparison of their respective employment relations systems that the range,
depth and scope of representative employee participation are greater in Denmark than New Zealand.
Comparison between the two countries enables testing of the impact of these differences on quality of
the work environment.

The hotel sector
Hotels are a major component of the hospitality/tourism industry sector, which is a growing contributor
to the economies of New Zealand and Denmark, with unique labour market conditions. In 2013, the
New Zealand tourism industry directly accounted for 5.7 per cent of total national FTE employment, andgenerated 3.7 per cent of GDP (Statistics New Zealand, n.d). Hotels account for 9 per cent of the Danish
labour force and 2.1 per cent of GDP (Ernst & Young, 2013).
In both countries, the hospitality workforce is characterised by its youth, feminisation, high proportionof immigrants, non-standard employment patterns, relatively low coverage of collective agreements andlow pay. Almost 40 per cent of New Zealand hospitality employees are under 25 years (33 per cent of
8

New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 39(1): 2-20
hotel workers), and in Denmark over 50 per cent are under 35 years. Females account for 62 per cent of
New Zealand hotel workers, and 54 per cent of Danish hospitality workers. Part-time workers make upover a third of the workforce in both countries. Higher than average proportions of foreign workers arealso attracted to the industry in both countries, with this proportion growing from 25 to 35 per cent in
New Zealand from 2001 to 2006 (Whiteford & Nolan, 2007; Klein Hesselink, 2004; Jørgensen, 2012).
In New Zealand, collective bargaining coverage is restricted to union members who comprise less than
10 per cent of the hospitality workforce (Boxall, Haynes & Macky, 2007: 155; Blumenfeld & Ryall,2013). In Denmark, 70-80 per cent of hospitality workers are covered by collective agreements, morethan union membership at about 40-50 per cent, since non-union members are included (CASA, 2002;
Jørgensen, 2012). Danish workplaces covered by collective agreements typically have cooperationcommittees. JCCs typically are associated with larger, unionised organisations, which mostly precludes
them from the smaller non-unionised organisations in the New Zealand hospitality industry.
Nonetheless, hotels tend to be larger, unionised organisations, making them more likely than most
hospitality organisations to have JCCs. Lo and Lamm (2005) also identified a high degree of unitarist
management thinking in the New Zealand hotel industry.
The industry has also experienced high labour turnover historically – up to 60 per cent per annum in
New Zealand – and high absenteeism – 4 per cent in Denmark. However, the recessionary environment
since 2008 has lowered these rates somewhat, with the latest New Zealand figures putting the hospitality
turnover figure at 32.7 per cent against an all industry average of 17.7 per cent (Human Resources
Institute of New Zealand, 2012; Jørgensen, 2012). High labour turnover and absenteeism significantly
affect business outcomes in the industry. Managers tend to attribute this to factors beyond their own
control, largely the stereotypical characterisation of the industry as a temporary, part-time source of
employment. However, Boxall, Macky and Rasmussen (2003) claim that voluntary labour turnover
represents one end of a continuum, which extends to high retention at the other end. This continuum
includes a sequence of withdrawal responses, including lateness and absenteeism, in response tounsatisfactory employment. Absenteeism includes work absence for injury or sickness, which may
indicate an unsafe work environment. Work environment, including job security, job satisfaction, stress,
pay satisfaction, and work/life balance, also critically affects labour exit decisions (Boxall et al., 2003;
NZTRI, 2007). Work organisation can be sub-optimal for employee well-being. For example, shift
work, which is common in the hotel industry, has been associated with stress (Wedderburn, 2006; Lo &Lamm, 2005). New payment systems for hotel work, for example, payment on the basis of the numberof rooms cleaned (piece rates), relies on work-intensification, which leads to use of unsafe working
methods, stress and injury (Oxenbridge & Moensted, 2011; Eriksson & Le, 2008).

Methodology
The data for this study derives from two coordinated research projects in Denmark and New Zealand,
covering a number of sectors, and adopting a multi-method case study approach. The material presented
here targeted two hotels in each country. Data were collected from: relevant documents;
 three to six interviews at each hotel, including HR and other middle managers, and employee
representatives; and a questionnaire survey of 29 employees from the New Zealand hotels, and 46 from the Danish
hotels.
9

New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 39(1): 2-20
The New Zealand employees surveyed represented 10 per cent (n. 9) and 6 per cent (n. 20) of all
employees in Hotel NZX and NZY, respectively whereas the Danish employees surveyed represented 58
and 62 per cent (n. 23 each) respectively in hotels DX and DY. Most employees surveyed were in the
kitchen/restaurant or reception/guest services areas. For the purpose of quantitative analysis from theemployee survey, indexes of two key concepts, quality of work environment (QWE) and direct
participation (DP) were developed to capture frequencies and distribution of responses across a series ofsurvey questions. QWE was measured by an index for workload and stress based on six survey
questions. A score out of 40 was measured for each workplace in each dimension; questions with a fivepoint response scale scored 40, 30, 20, 10, and 0 from the most to least positive response. This method
follows the practice of the Danish National Research Institute for the Work Environment (Kristensen,
Hannerz, Høgh & Borg, 2005) and is also inspired by the Likert scale. As higher scores in generalindicate a more positive work environment, scoring for workload and stress questions was reversed since
the most positive response was ‘negative’ (e.g. the most positive response to the question about feelingstressed was ‘never/almost never’).
Quality of the work environment was measured on the basis of six identical Danish/New Zealandquestions with a 5-point scale and aggregated into an index for each workplace:







Do you have more work than you can accomplish?
Are you required to work overtime?
How often have you felt worn out from work?
Does your work put you in emotionally distressing situations?
How often have you felt stressed?
Do you think your work takes so much of your energy that it affects your private life?

Regarding participation, the degree of direct participation experienced by the hotel employees wasmeasured by four questions which, taken together, tap central aspects of this type of participation:Do you have significant influence on how much work you do?
Do you have significant influence on how your work is done?
Do you get information on important decisions from management in due time?
Do you have possibilities to learn new things in your job?

A score was measured for each hotel for each dimension, using the same method as for QWE, and acomposite index for all direct participation was constructed.
As to representative participation, different environments in Denmark and New Zealand required
different survey questions; for this reason, the separate results were interwoven with qualitative data todevelop a characterisation of each workplace. On the basis of case studies across four different sectors inthe broader study (not just hotels but also schools, food manufacturing, and hospitals/old age facilities,
see Knudsen & Markey, 2014) three ideal types of participation, or participation models, weredeveloped: the IR-model, the democratic model and the HRM-model. The models, which represent
principally divergent configurations of participation at workplace level, will not be discussed in detailhere. This is because all the four hotels in the study turned out to belong to the HRM-type, aconfiguration in which management – not unions and not employees – plays a central role in10New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 39(1): 2-20
determining how participation is structured and played out in practice. Representative participation plays
a lesser role in the HRM model than in the IR-model or the democratic model.
The Danish hotels are part of major companies. Hotel DX is a rurally located four-star hotel, part of a
Danish chain of 10 hotels. Hotel DY is a three-star hotel based in the city of Aalborg, part of a larger
northern European chain of 150 hotels. Both Danish case studies represent positive and well-regulated
workplaces in the middle to upper segment of the hospitality industry. Both companies are members of
the employers’ organisation, Horesta, which means that they are covered by a collective agreement andhave cooperation committees, although not at the individual hotel, but for the entire group. Further, in
accordance with Danish legislation, both hotels operate OHS committees. Compared with the conditionsin the sector generally, both Danish hotels have a relatively stable employment structure with only athird of employees in both hotels employed for less than a year. Hotel DX has a somewhat more stable
workforce, with 30 per cent of employees having been employed for over five years, compared with
only 17 per cent for hotel DY. Sickness, absenteeism and labour turnover are also lower at hotel DX
than hotel DY.
The two New Zealand hotels are parts of large international chains, with overseas owners in France andthe US, regional offices in Australia, and hierarchical management structures. Hotel NX is based in thecity of Auckland, and hotel NY in the capital, Wellington. Both hotels are in the upper end of the sector:
Hotel NX is rated five-star, and NY is four-star. As with the Danish hotels, the New Zealand ones
typified the general employment trends in the sector, but operated with somewhat more positive work
environments than industry averages. NX had an annual labour turnover rate of 45 per cent, and NY of
50 per cent.

Findings
Representative participation
In all four hotels, representative employee participation can be described as embedded in a HRM
approach, based on management initiative and relatively weak representative participation mainly
confined to mandatory OHS structures. In this approach, previously outlined by Knudsen and Markey(2014), management is mainly interested in practices benefiting performance.
In terms of non-union forms of representative participation, both New Zealand hotels have reasonably
effective OHS committees, but with narrow jurisdictions and some limitations to accountability andrepresentativeness. Although numerically dominated by employees, the NX committee includes theChief Engineer and HRM manager. The NX employee representatives are a mixture of volunteers andnominees, often “shoulder-tapped” for the role according to the HRM manager. The NY OHS
committee seems more representative in that employee nominees are called for and elected by staff.
Interviewees indicated that there was no issue with getting people to nominate, although the General
Manager considered that some “shoulder-tapping” occurred. The NY committee is also chaired by the
executive secretary to the General Manager. The jurisdiction of both committees is confined essentiallyto hazard identification and reduction, but both management and employee representatives consideredthem effective in this sphere. For both New Zealand hotels, OHS committee staff representatives arepaid to attend meetings outside normal hours, and committee membership is viewed by employees as anopportunity for networking and access to management. NY has more extensive training opportunities,
11New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 39(1): 2-20
during introduction to the committee, and an online training module for all staff. Both hotels also
operate a range of other committees focused on quality improvement and social activities. These
committees tend to be organised either around specific functions, such as sales or front line reception, or
they are cross-functional, drawing managers and employees from throughout the hotel, for example,
environmental committees and exchange committees.
Compared to Danish industrial relations more broadly, representative participation structures are
relatively weak in the Danish hotels. The two case study hotels are members of the employers’organisation, and, hence, covered by a collective agreement. This is unusual in a sector, which by
Danish standards has a low coverage of collective agreements. However, neither hotel’s employees haveelected union shop stewards; in the case of hotel DY, this is partly attributable to management pressure.
Yet, this does not mean that management operates in a union free environment. To the extent that thenational collective agreement stipulates supplementary local bargaining processes, management is
obliged to negotiate with the union district organisation. The managers at both hotels recognise thisobligation and claim they have good relations with the union at district level. Whilst each company has acooperation committee, these do not operate at the level of the individual hotels. At hotel DX, theemployees have an elected representative on the cooperation committee; at hotel DY, which is arelatively small hotel within a large group, the workers are not represented on the cooperationcommittee.
In the Danish hotels, the mandatory OHS committees (or work environment committees as they arecalled), therefore, are the only representative structures at workplace level. The OHS committees deal
with both possible risks in the physical work environment and possible psychosocial problems such as
stress. Whilst the OHS representative at both hotels feel that work environment standards are acceptable,
they also complain that more expensive improvements sometimes have to wait because they needrecognition at group level.
Unionisation for the New Zealand hotels is weak (Boxall et al., 2007). Hotel NX has less than one percent of its membership unionised, and has no collective agreement. Hotel NY has about 10 per cent of
its workforce unionised, equivalent to the sector average. Although hotel NY is not covered by acollective agreement, other New Zealand hotels in the group are, and have developed a partnership
relationship with Unite Union. In HRM policy terms, partnership is expressed through encouragement of
direct participation in problem solving, greater teamwork, a higher proportion of permanent employees,
and payment of employees’ union fees by management.
Exact figures for unionisation in the Danish hotels are not available. However, at both, there is a mixtureof workers who are organised in 3F, the union that negotiates the collective agreement, workers who arein a ‘yellow’ union (i.e. a union that has no influence on the collective agreement), and workers who are
not members of any union. Whilst the lack of a shop steward is a sign of weak unionisation, the fact thatsome of the employees are affiliated to the 3F means that the workforce, ultimately, can rely on support
from the union in case the management fails to respect provisions in the collective agreement.
Direct participation
The majority of employees at all hotels have a relatively strong sense of direct influence on how theirwork is done, but less influence on how much work they do. For the Danish hotels, there is a clear
difference between the two hotels concerning participation. The employees at hotel DX claim to have12New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 39(1): 2-20
much more influence than employees at hotel DY do on how much work they do and how the work isdone. The possibilities to learn something new in the job are relatively better at the New Zealand hotels
than the Danish. Regarding information, there is little difference between the two Danish hotels, both ofwhich are rated significantly lower than the New Zealand hotels on receiving information in a timely
manner.
Table 1. Direct Participation (DP) - scores on scale from 0-40
Workplace Influence
Influence how Information
workload
work is done
from mgmt
Hotel DX
26.5
27.8
23.5
Hotel DY
17.4
23.5
24.3
Hotel NX
21.3
35.6
30.0
Hotel NY
24.5
30.0
27.0

Learning
possibilities
28.3
25.2
37.8
30.5

DP index
26.5
22.6
31.2
28.0

It appears that the degree of direct participation is higher at the New Zealand hotels than at the Danish
ones, with hotel DY particularly lagging behind. While their influence on workload is actually smaller
than for Danish employees in hotel DX, the New Zealanders clearly experience more influence as to
how work is carried out, just as they clearly consider that they receive more information frommanagement and experience more learning in their jobs.
Work environment
Table 2 also displays a clear, largely contrasting, picture regarding work environment quality. On
average, the conditions for Danish employees clearly appear to be better. Employees from both Danish
hotels are less likely than their New Zealand counterparts to feel worn out from work, to experiencefrequent work-related stress, or to have their personal lives affected by loss of energy from work. One or
another of the Danish hotels is also least likely to have employees who consider that they have morework than they can accomplish, or that they are placed in emotionally distressing situations in theworkplace. Only with overtime requirements do employees at one New Zealand hotel respond the mostpositively (marginally), i.e. they are less likely consider they are regularly required to undertake it.
Looking at the hotels on a more individual basis, the survey results are generally more positive for one
hotel in each country. In the Danish case, this observation applies across all components of the QWE
index, except having more work than employees feel they can accomplish, which is the sole measure
where Hotel DY outperforms Hotel DX. In New Zealand, Hotel NX performs more positively thanHotel DY across all measures of QWE except for overtime requirements, where Hotel NY ranked themost positively of all four hotels.
Table 2. Quality of work environment (QWE) - scores on scale from 0-40
Workplace More work Overtime Tired Emotional Stress Affect on
than
can required from
distressoften personal
accomplish
work
life
Hotel DX 21.7
25.5
28.7
32.2
33.9
31.3
Hotel DY 26.1
17.4
27.8
29.6
29.6
27.8
Hotel NX 22.2
17.8
24.4
31.1
26.7
24.4
Hotel NY 19.0
26.0
13.0
22.0
17.0
22.0

QWEindex
28.9
26.4
24.4
19.8
13

New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 39(1): 2-20
Comparing participation data with QWE data
When DP and QWE are brought together, as is the case in Table 3, it appears that there is no positive
association between direct participation and work environment quality. The first two cases, ranked for
direct participation, hotels NX and NY are also ranked three and four, respectively for QWE, whereas
the two lowest cases for direct participation, Hotels DX and DY, are ranked one and two, respectively
for QWE. If anything, the figures point at a negative association between direct participation and QWE.
However, it is noteworthy that for both direct participation and QWE, the Danish and New Zealandhotels rank as pairs at the top or bottom of the rankings. If we look within each national pairing, then thehigher and lower rankings for direct participation and QWE do actually correspond with each other. Thissuggests a country effect from different institutional environments.
Regarding representative participation, it is not possible, as above, to compare one set of figures withanother. However, it does seem likely that higher QWE levels experienced by Danish workers can atleast partly be explained by the greater scope for representative participation in Denmark. Cooperationcommittees, a broader agenda for the OHS committees and a national collective agreement, which
determines important parts of the effort-reward exchange, are all elements that can help shape a work
environment that keeps psychosocial work environment problems at bay.
Table 3. Direct participation and work environment – scores and rank order of four hotels
WorkplaceDP score
DP rank
QWE score
QWE rank
Hotel NX
31.2
1
24.4
3
Hotel NY
28.0
2
19.8
4
Hotel DX
26.5
3
28.9
1
Hotel DY
22.6
4
26.4
2

Conclusion
Obviously, the empirical material that this article is based upon is not sufficient to generalise. Material
from two cases in each of the two countries cannot represent either the industry or the country. However,a few remarks on how the pattern of participation unfolds in these four cases in two countries areappropriate.
On average, we find work environment quality to be slightly better at the Danish hotels. Can this be
explained by the fact that Danish hotel workers enjoy more direct participation at their workplaces thantheir New Zealand colleagues? The answer to this question is: No! Regarding direct participation, ourdata show that the New Zealand employees, with few exceptions, are equipped with a higher degree of
influence, learning and information sharing than the Danes; however, they also experienced relatively
high stress levels in this environment. The findings, thus, lend support to the participation literature thatquestions the notion of participation as always beneficial to the work environment and workers’ wellbeing (Busck et al., 2010, Kalleberg et al., 2009).
The problem, as we see it, with the high level of participation granted to the New Zealand hotel workers
is that it is all granted on the premises of management. The New Zealand employees receive
information, they enjoy learning opportunities, and they get influence on their immediate work
14

New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 39(1): 2-20
environment, but they have no influence on any of the important framework conditions of work (cf.
Hyman & Mason, 1995). In other words, the form of participation practised in the New Zealand hotels iswhat Pateman (1970) called “pseudo”, or what Hyman and Mason (1995) characterised as employee
involvement, motivated by management desire for organisational efficiency through employee
motivation. “Pseudo” participation or employee involvement, then, is not necessarily associated with
better QWE.
Influence on the framework conditions of work is available to a considerable extent in the Danish hotels
through the fact that workers there are covered by a national collective agreement, which contains a
number of limitations to employers’ ability to freely exploit labour power. This may be characterised as
Pateman’s “partial” participation, or what Hyman and Mason (1995) called employee participation.
When Danish workers can be seen to score better on the questions related to workload and stress, this
could very well be a reflection of the stronger forms of representative participation enjoyed by theDanish employees, notably because they are covered by a collective agreement, but also perhaps due tothe dialogues occurring in the cooperation and OHS committees.
This brings us to an evaluation of the relative strength of participation in its different manifestations in
the New Zealand and Danish hotels, using Blyton and Turnbull’s (2004) terms of depth and scope. The
partial participation operating in the Danish hotels, through representative structures associated with thecollective agreement and cooperation and OHS committees, provided greater depth of participation thanin the New Zealand hotels with their relatively higher degree of direct, or “pseudo”, participation
focused on task autonomy, information sharing and learning. We may also say, for the same reasons,that the scope of participation in the Danish hotels was greater than the New Zealand ones, since thelatter cases confined participation to operational matters. In contrast, the Danish cases, to some extent,
involved workers and their representatives in tactical matters related to work organisation andtechnology, if not more strategic issues. The Danish hotels, indeed, provided instances of very partial
participation because the weak level of workplace representation meant that most consultation andnegotiation occurred at a higher level in the organisation. Nevertheless, overall, these greater
opportunities for participation contributed to a greater depth and scope and, therefore, strength ofparticipation in the Danish hotels.
Two main conclusions may, therefore, be drawn from these case studies. First, by themselves, direct
forms of participation that closely align with Pateman’s (1970) concept of “pseudo” participation do notnecessarily lead to good QWE, and may even be associated with a poor QWE through work
intensification. Secondly, representative forms of participation, even if partial, appear to offer greater
opportunities for a better QWE. This distinction in terms of the impact on QWE warrants further
exploration, through case studies and more general quantitative research, particularly in terms of thedegree of impact from stronger and weaker structures of representative participation.

Acknowledgements
The Danish part of this study received financial support from the Danish Work Environment Research
Foundation (Arbejdsmiljøforskningsfonden). The New Zealand part of the study received financial
support from the New Zealand Department of Labour.

15

New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 39(1): 2-20

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New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 39(1): 21-32

The major parties: National’s and Labour’s employment
relations policies
ERLING RASMUSSEN*, MICHAEL FLETCHER** and BRIAN HANNAM***
Abstract
The policies of the two major parties – the National Party and the Labour Party – areoverviewed, based on our reading of recent policy implementation and election promises. The
overview highlights two very different approaches to employment relations and its context.
The National Party is continuing its piecemeal dismantling of collective bargaining andindividual employment rights while the Labour Party seeks to enhance collective bargaining
and unionism as well as individual employment rights. With its tax policies and more stateintervention, the Labour Party is also projecting a different path to the elusive high skill, highwage knowledge economy. It appears that the 2014 general election provides the electorate
with a clear choice when it comes to the employment relations policies of the two main
parties.

Introduction
Most commentators have emphasised that this has been a rather unusual election campaign
with the fall-out from the Nicky Hager book, Dirty Politics, and the resignation of Minister ofJustice, Judith Collins, hogging the headlines. Also, the nature of MMP elections andcoalition governments has meant that the policies of the two main parties have sometimes
been overshadowed by the policies and behaviours of minor parties (see Molineaux &Skilling (2014) article in this issue). Still, there has been considerable focus on the major
parties’ policy positions and announcements, and they have shown plenty of policy
differences both in the context of and in the specifics of employment relations. We will
highlight some of these differences below.
This election has been influenced by that the economy and labour market has changed
considerably since 2011. There has been the positive influence of the highest terms of trade in
40 years in 2013-2014, and the positive impact of high dairy prices and the resulting pay-outs
to farmers have flown through to regional economies. Construction industry employment has
increased significantly due to re-building work in Christchurch getting close to its peak, andby the ongoing repair to many ‘leaky buildings’. This upswing in construction industry
employment is expected to continue for the foreseeable future. Unemployment has declined
over the past election period and it is now at a five-year low at 5.6 per cent. Reports of skills
shortages and labour market bottlenecks have begun to appear in the media, and theinsufficient attention to increasing labour market mobility measures and investing in
vocational training and education during the past election period is becoming common
knowledge (Collins, 2012; Doesburg, 2014; Porter, 2014).
*

Professor of Work and Employment, Department of Management, Auckland University of Technology,
Auckland (AUT),**
Senior Lecturer, Department of Social Sciences and Public Policy, Auckland University of Technology***
Researcher, Auckland University of Technology

21

New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 39(1): 21-32“‘This is the second year in a row that over half of employers in New Zealand arestruggling to fill roles despite having an unemployment rate of 6 per cent,’ said
Lincoln Crawley, ManPower-Group’s New Zealand and Australia managing
direction” (Doesburg, 2014: 14).
There has also been more public emphasis on income inequality, ‘working poor’ and children
in poor households, and both major parties have tried to emphasise their policies in thoseareas (see Table 3 below). What appears to have changed is the underlying understanding ofmainstream economists and commentators: higher statutory minimum wages, social welfare
interventions and better school-to-jobs connections are now being projected in a morepositive economic light (for example, Editorial, 2014; O’Neill, 2014; MBIE, 2014). It is also
illustrated by the media attention given to the so-called ‘living wage’ campaign (see New
Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 38(3)).
It is plainly crazy – at a time when company profits take up a record share of national
incomes – that wages have to be constantly topped up by the state to give the low-paid
an acceptable standard of living (Warner, 2014: B10).
This has also influenced another significant employment relations topic – the so-called
productivity ‘conundrum’ – where the spotlight has moved from unions and constraints onwork practices to insufficient R&D spending, managerial skills and skill shortages (see deSerres, Yashiro & Boulhol, 2014; Fallow, 2014; Oram, 2014 a, b). This is also where thevision of the two major parties has grown apart over recent times (as outlined below).
While we have drawn on the available information about the two parties’ policy positions,this has been influenced by recent media reports. This is also our description and evaluationof their policies and will involve some personal biases and speculations. This is particularly
the case regarding the National Party’s position, which has been interestingly short of policy
details about its future employment relations policies – as it was in the last election(Rasmussen, 2011) – though we have had the advantage of being able to draw on the last six
years’ policy announcements and implementations. While neither party has focused strongly
on employment relations, it has surfaced in debates of inequality, poverty, low and ‘living’wages, skill shortages and economic growth.
In the next section, we overview the two parties’ recent public policy positions. With the
National Party forming the government in the last two election periods, this provides areasonably accurate picture of the main thrust of its employment relations policy platform
even though it has not divulged much detail so far in the election campaign. It also aligns
with the National Party’s aim to ‘run on its record’ and its claim of wanting to continuing its
current policies. However, there can always be changes as political alliances and debates
unfold. With the Labour Party developing a number of new policy directions, it is more
unclear how much its policy positions of the recent past will contribute, and instead thecurrent election platform will probably provide a more precise picture of its policy approachin the coming election period.

22New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 39(1): 21-32

Employment relations policies and positions 2008-2014
Since 2008 employment relations policies have been dominated by the changes made by the
National-led governments (see Table 1). During the 2005-2008 period, the National Party
moved from a repeal of the Employment Relation Act (ERA) to specific and limited changes.
Its election platform had very few specifics about employment relations though it had a
handful of targeted areas (Rasmussen & Walker, 2009: 166): “removing the union monopoly bargaining rights for collective agreements, to allow
non-union workers to enter into agreements
 reviewing personal grievance procedures, which were seen as skewed in favour of theemployee introducing an optional “probationary period”, where new employees would not haveaccess to personal grievance provisions
 reducing compliance costs, particularly removing ACC’s monopoly over workplace
injury insurance
 revisiting the Holidays Act”.
Likewise, the National Party did not produce a detailed policy document about employment
relations in 2011, though it had just introduced the ER Amendment Act 2010 (see below) anda raft of other public policy changes (see Haworth, 2011), and it had foreshadowed further
changes to employment rights and collective bargaining. While the ER Amendment Bill 2013
will probably be resurrected in some form if the National Party gain power, it is unclear
whether there will be any further major changes. In particular, the policy wishes of employer
associations have not been commented on by National Party politicians, including thesuggestion of extending the 90-day trial period from Business NZ (2014: 3): “Small businesswould support the extension of this policy to 6 or 12 months, as in other countries.” Thereappears to be a pattern with the National Party downplaying its employment relations policyin the last three general elections and, thereby, avoiding a strongly ideological and political
battleground.
Surprisingly, the Labour Party has yet to manage to position its employment relations policies
as a central feature of the 2014 election campaign. For example, there has hardly been any
debate about its proposed Commission of Inquiry into collective bargaining (see below). Thisis rather surprising since the Labour Party has a very detailed policy platform, it provides aclear distinction to the policy platform of the National Party, and it aligns well with its core
union constituency and its possible future coalition partners the Greens and NZ First (seeMolineaux & Skilling, 2014). Furthermore, many of the Labour Party’s core policies onpoverty, skills shortages and fairness are compatible with its new direction in employment
relations, including abolishing several of the changes implemented during the 2008-2014
National-led governments.

23

New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 39(1): 21-32
Table 1: Employment relations policy changes 2008-2014
Legislation
ER Amendment Act 2008
ER Amendment Act 2010

Holidays Amendment Act 2010

ER (Film Production Work) Amendment Act 2010
ER (Secret Ballots for Strikes) Amendment Act 2012
ER Amendment Bill 2013 (not implemented)

Minimum Wage (Starting-out Wage) Amendment
Act 2013

Health and Safety legislation

Legislative purpose and details
Introduce 90-day probation/trial period for small
businesses (1-19 employees)
Extend 90-day trial period to all organisations,
reduced union access rights, reinstatement is nolonger primary remedy in dismissal cases, change
dismissal test from what a reasonable employer‘would’ instead of ‘could’ have done
Employers can require proof of sickness from thefirst day, allow employees to trade for cash theirfourth week of annual leave‘Hobbit’ legislation prescribes ‘contracting’ for film
production workers
Before taking strike action, unions need to conduct
secret ballots of members
Changes good faith duty to conclude collective
bargaining, allow opting out of multi-employer
agreement bargaining, meal and refreshment breaks
can be removed, allow pay reduction for partial
strikes, changes transfer regulation (Part 6A), strike
notice requirements changed
Reduce starting-out wages for 16-19 years
employees to 80 per cent of adult statutory minimum
wage (applies only to 18-19 years olds if they havebeen on benefit prior to starting job)
The Health and Safety Reform Bill in March 2014
extends the duty of care to all persons in control of abusiness or undertaking, worker participation isstrengthened. New enforcement agency Worksafe
NZ.
The Accident Compensation Act underwent two
amendments in 2008 and 2010. The amendments
were primarily concerned with reducing the numberof claims and associated costs.1

Source: Council of Trade Unions’ website; EMA’s (Employers & Manufacturers) website;
New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations (various issues); Blumenfeld, Ryall & Keily,
2011-2014.
Table 1 sets out some of the major legislative changes though there have also been several
private member bills (see Table in Molineaux & Skilling, 2014). As the ER Amendment Bill
2013 will probably set the future course of a National-led government post 2014, we are
discussing below the details and the associated policy debate of that legislation. Overall, the2008-2014 policy has undermined employee protection in several ways – be it in terms ofstatutory individual employee rights or in terms of unions’ ability to conduct collective
bargaining. The ‘adjustments’ to individual employee rights have been considerable. The socalled 90-day trial periods have become a standard feature in employment agreements formany new workers in key sectors, such as hospitality and retail, and recent figures indicatethat employers are ‘trying-before-buying’ with many employees losing their jobs during thetrial period (MBIE, 2012). The rather unusual ‘Hobbit’ intervention forced a change of
1

The ACC changes included an introduction of experience rating and risk sharing for the Work and Motor
Vehicle Accounts, setting a threshold for cover for hearing loss, and earnings-related compensation based on 52
weeks in a year.

24New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 39(1): 21-32
employment status on film production workers and overruled traditional legal precedent (seea special issue of New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 36(3) on the ‘Hobbit’
interventions).
The ongoing changes to the legislative framework have clearly been controversial. The
National-led government has argued that more flexibility for employers would be positive interms of job creation and efficiency. With employers having more flexibility and less risk (interms of personal grievances), this would reduce labour costs, transaction costs and increase
predictability. Recent research has indicated that many employers concur with thesearguments though it is debated to what degree this has increased employer willingness toemploy and create extra jobs (see Business NZ, 2014; MBIE, 2012). Research has also
highlighted that many employers are supportive of the legislative changes, even legislation
they may not use in their own workplace (Foster, Rasmussen & Cotezee, 2013). In fact, some
employers are interested in further changes to enhance their employment flexibility (Business
NZ, 2014; Foster et al., 2013).
On the other hand, the Labour Party and its union allies have continuously argued against
these changes, and portrayed them as undermining sustainable economic growth, increasing
inequality and further embedding an underclass of ‘working poor’. The ERA is seen as being
undermined by a ‘1000 cuts’ which constitute “some of the most radical changes in
employment law in a generation” (Little, 2014).
The Labour Party has continued its
criticism of the 90-day trial periods, the inability to lift sufficiently statutory minimum wages
and paid parental leave, and the attacks on union access and bargaining rights. As
employment relations changes have gathered pace from 2010 onwards, the difference
between the two parties’ policy positions has increased and the Labour Party has promised toabolish most of the post-2008 changes.
Finally, it must be noted that the regulatory changes to health and safety does not appear to fit
with the National-led governments’ focus on creating more flexibility. The Pike River mining
disaster and the inability to reduce fatalities and injuries have changed the political debate ofhealth and safety since 2011. Following the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Pike River
Coal Mine explosions and the report issued by the Independent Taskforce on Workplace
Health and Safety, the government implemented a stand-alone enforcement agency,
Worksafe NZ, and introduced a new health and safety bill. This is a remarkable development
since the National-led government’s current OHS policy position contains a number ofpolitical U-turns on: employer responsibilities, employee participation, enforcement andpenalties. According to the Minister’s press release: “Specifically, the Health and Safety
Reform Bill will:
Put more onus and legal requirements on managers and company directors to manage
risks and keep their workers safe.
Require greater worker participation so workers are more involved in health and safety
in their workplace.
Establish stronger penalties, enforcement tools, graduated offence categories and court
powers (Press Release, Minister of Labour Simon Bridges, 10 March 2014).

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New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 39(1): 21-32
The creation of a stand-alone enforcement agency also cuts across the previous creation of asuper-ministry, the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (see Lamm,
Rasmussen & Anderson, 2013).
The ER Amendment Bill 2013 is of special interest as it can be seen as ‘unfinished business’
and, thereby, indicating the reform intentions of a future National-led government. It also
highlights the narrow parliamentary foundation of the employment relations reforms in thelast two periods. With John Banks’ absent vote, the government’s majority had evaporated as
the Maori Party continued its traditional opposition to such reforms (see Molineaux &Skilling, 2014).
In general, the ER Amendment Bill 2013 continued the move of previous public policychanges towards more employer-determined flexibility and further constraining collective
bargaining and union activity (Haworth, 2011), though probably with a stronger focus oncollective bargaining and unionism. There are several changes to employment rights byremoving automatic entitlement to meal and refreshment breaks, by removing transfer
protections (as stipulated in Part 6A of the ERA), and by removing the 30-day rule for new
employees which prescribes that new employees will be covered by an existing collective
employment agreement2, and employers are allowed to withhold information in dismissal
cases. The Bill’s changes to collective bargaining are comprehensive: it abolishes the duty toconclude collective bargaining and allows opting out of multi-employer bargaining; unionand employers will have same time period for initiating bargaining, a 60-day period afternegotiation is deemed over where employers can offer individual employment agreements, itcurtails strike action. The latter happens through two changes where more strict noticerequirements will be required and where pay deductions for partial strikes are allowed. It isdifficult to see how these changes align with the ERA’s objective of promoting collective
bargaining.

Overview of current policies and election promises
While most of the policy differences in Table 2 are rather self-explanatory, there are at least
three areas which appear less clear-cut and could facilitate considerable public policy change.
First, the Commission Inquiry into wages and collective bargaining proposed by the Labour
Party could have far-reaching implications. The Labour Party’s website indicates some of thescope by specifically mentioning redundancy, vulnerable workers and rights for dependent
contractors, and it opens for considerable change to collective bargaining: “A Commission ofInquiry will be charged with investigating wage setting and other workplace practices andreporting on how to implement industry standard agreements, tailored as needed to meet New
Zealand conditions.” The notion of fairness and anti-discrimination also features strongly andsome move towards pay equity could also feature in the Commission of Inquiry.
Second, the Labour Party’s pledge to abolish the ‘Hobbit’ legislation brings into focus theissues surrounding independent contracting in New Zealand. This is an issue that the Labour
Party has campaigned on for a while (see Fenton, 2011) and legislative intervention could be
2

While it is unclear how much the 30-day rule has impacted on collective bargaining and conditions of new
employees during 2000-2014, the Council of Trade Unions (2014: 3) is clearly worried about potential employer
reactions: “This will also make it easier for employers to undermine the collective agreement and employ
casuals on lower rates. The Cabinet Paper specifically mentioned that this will permit wages lower than thecollective agreement.”

26

New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 39(1): 21-32
expected (as part of the Commission of Inquiry mentioned above). There are several types ofproblems associated with independent contracting. There are situations where ‘sham
contracting’ occur (that is, when employees are being reclassified as contractors – see
Rasmussen & Anderson, 2010). The lack of statutory minima coupled with dependency ofcontractors on a single ‘employer’ can often led to inferior pay and working conditions(Fenton, 2011). This can be further aggravated when sub-contracting occurs. A fluctuating
and sometimes unpredictable work flow can also have dire consequences for workers(Walker, 2011). Finally, contracting has received a lot of media and academic attention
recently because of the OHS problems – fatalities and injuries – in industries with a highnumber of independent contractors (Lamm, Lamare & McDonnell, 2014).
Third, the positions around health and safety are also interesting. There is no doubt that thereactive approach to ‘policing’ workplace standards has been undermined by the Pike Riverdisaster and continuous high levels of fatalities and injuries. This has prompted the Healthand Safety Reform Bill 2014 and a stand-alone Worksafe NZ agency to implement and‘police’ regulations. Still, the stand-alone status of Worksafe NZ, the new legislation’s
punitive approach to senior management responsibilities and a stronger, more powerfulinspectorate appear to sit uneasy with the general thrust of the National Party’s employment
relations approach. This is clearly an area where there appears – at least at the surface – to besome commonality between the two parties, though the Labour Party clearly wants to gomuch further, especially in high-risk industries where the use of contractors is common.
Table 2: Employment relations policy positions, September 2014
Policies
National Party
90-day trial periods
No change
Collective bargaining
Expected to follow position in ER
Amendment Bill 2013

Union access and information

Expected to follow position in ER
Amendment Bill 2013

Protection of new workers

Continue 90-day trial periods. ER
Amendment Bill 2013 would
repeal 30-day rule for new
employees.
Continue ‘responsible’ rises instatutory minimum wage. Has
target of a $62,000 average wage
by 2018
Implement Health and Safety
Reform Bill with stand-alone
Worksafe NZ agency
No change.

Statutory minimum wage

Health & safety

Equity & discrimination

Labour Party
Abolish 90-day trial periods
Will support collective bargaining,
including MECAs or industry
collective norms. Commission
Inquiry into wages and collective
bargaining
Restore union access, better
information about unions, protect
against ‘undue influence’ and antiunion discrimination
Abolish 90-day trial periods andstarting-out wages, lift statutory
minimum
wage,
protecting
contractors
Lift to $16.25 per hour by April
2015, abolish youth rates andstarting-out wages, living wage
for core civil servants
Review
OHS
legislation,
implement all Pike River Royal
Commission recommendations
Abolish ‘Hobbit’ legislation toprovide film production workers
with employee option andcollective bargaining rights

Source: websites of the National Party and Labour Party; media reports; press releases ofparty policy announcements.

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New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 39(1): 21-32
While the devil is always in the detail and in the actual policy implementation, it is ourdistinct impression that the general policy gap between the two parties have increased
significantly recently. The Labour Party will generally continue the main thrust of the ERA
whose objectives explicitly support collective bargaining and unionism – collectivism is seenas ‘good’ for productive employment relationships. The National Party clearly has not thesame position and while the ERA’s objectives have not been changed, they probably will bedifficult to align with the party’s understanding of how to promote productive employment
relationships. Importantly, the new policy positions of the Labour Party indicate that thelimited positive impact of the ERA on collectivism prior to 2008 – especially the lack ofmulti-employer collective agreements and limited union density growth – has been taken on
board. The current Labour Party platform has a much stronger support of collective
bargaining and unionism and generally raises the prospect of a more interventionist
government.
There are also more differences when the employment relations context is considered. As canbe seen from Table 3, there are several areas where the two parties’ policy position is trying
to both claim the policy centre ground and present a particular ideological position. This is,for example, the case with school education where both parties respond to concerns about
education outcomes, but have different approaches to lift education quality. National’s focus
is on initiatives targeting teacher quality; Labour’s is on reducing class sizes (Woulfe, 2014).
The growing concerns about disengaged young people (so-called NEET – not in
employment, education or training – persons, see Pacheco & Dye, 2013) and young people
have been targeted by the parties’ policy positions. Again, there are similarities but also
considerable differences in the proposed policy interventions. National’s primary focus has
been on intensive case management support through its Youth Service programme aimed atgetting disengaged young people back into education and training. Labour would keep a
version of this programme but has a stronger emphasis of apprenticeships for youth andwould also reinstate Training Incentive Allowance assistance for sole parent beneficiaries toundertake higher levels of tertiary education. The parties’ response to the prospect of growing
skill shortages has been to increase funding for apprenticeships – National via a qualifications
target for 25-34 year olds, Labour through identified additional funding places plus
development of Employment and Skills and Careers Strategies.
Both parties have picked up on ‘middle New Zealand’ concerns for better support for parents
with new-borns and young children, although Labour has gone rather further than National in
its proposals. Labour would extend paid parental leave (PPL) to 26 weeks, introduce a new‘Best Start’ payment for under-twos and extend free early childhood education (ECE) from
20 to 25 hours per week. National proposes a smaller four week extension to PPL, plus anincrease in the Parental Tax Credit (available to non-beneficiaries who do not qualify for
PPL) and an increase in ECE expenditure. Both parties propose free primary healthcare (GPconsultations and prescriptions) for children under 13 years.

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New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 39(1): 21-32
Table 3: Employment relations context: policy positions
Policies
Socialwelfarebenefits,
employment
assistanceandassistance for Youth (including
Youth
NEET
–
Not
in
Employment,
EducationandTraining)

National Party
Continue ‘investment approach’
begun as part of welfare reforms.
Re-write Social Security Act andembed investment approach intoitContinue focus on at-riskyouth/young parents.
Extend income management tomore young parents (and someothers.

Family assistance, child poverty

Extend Paid Parental Leave byfour weeks to 16 weeks.
Raise Parental Tax Credit.
Extend free-GP visits to under13 year olds.
Increase ECE funding.
Continue with phased in
reduction in tax credit abatement
threshold and increase inabatement rate.
Continue recent support toapprentices and employers, withtarget of 60 per cent of 25-34
years old persons with tradequalifications.

Vocational training

Education & teachers

Reward the best teachers. Buildnine new Auckland schools and
130 more classrooms.
Four more partnership schools.

Immigration

Review Investor Plus scheme for
wealthy immigrants
Lift number of Pacific Islandersin
Recognised
Seasonal
Employer scheme from 8,000 to
9,000 annually
Invest in ICT graduates, grow
Callaghan Innovation grants,
invest in Maori-led science andinnovation
Possible income tax cuts in 2017targeted at ‘low-to middleincome’ earners (approximately$1 billion per year in total).

Research & development (R&D)

TaxationLabour Party
Raise abatement-free threshold to$150pw to encourage part-timework.
Youth employment package andyoung people pathways, subsidies
foremployersfornewapprenticeships for 18-19 year oldbeneficiaries.
RestoreTraining
Incentive
Allowance for Sole Parent
Beneficiaries for Level 4 andabove qualifications
Best Start package for pre-schoolaged children.
Extend Paid Parental Leave to 26
weeks.
Increase free-ECE hours to 25 per
week.
Extend free-GP visits to under-13
year olds.

Employment and Skills Strategy.
Careers Strategy, with increased
funds for vocational guidance.
Lift apprenticeship funding, withpayments to employers (12,000
over four years).
Additional Maori & Pasifika
Trades Training places.
Employ more teachers and reduceclass sizes, extra teachers for
special needs and raise teachers
entry standards, supply tablets tostudents
Review Investor Plus scheme,changepointssystemstoincentivise immigrants to settle inregions,
implement‘countercyclical’ controls to smooth flowof migrants
Invest in secondary teachers, reinstate post-doctoral fellowships,
R&D tax credit (12.5 per cent),
better career advice
Introduce 15 per cent Capital
Gains tax (excluding primaryresidence).
New top income tax rate of 36 percent on income over $150,000(and Trust tax rate of 36 per cent).

Source: media reports, press releases and the parties’ websites: https://www.national.org.nz/policies &http://campaign.labour.org.nz/all_our_announced_policies

29

New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 39(1): 21-32

What are the likely implications?
Well, that of course depends on who forms the next government. In case of a National-led
government, the election campaign has promised ‘more of the same’. The blueprint willprobably be the ER Amendment Bill 2013, which will continue the ‘adjustments’ tocollective bargaining and unionism. However, it will not just be ‘more of the same’ as current
economic activity could put more pressure on vocational training and the overall education
system if skill shortages become more embedded. There have also been growing concerns
about inequality and poverty which can no longer be placarded with references to the Great
Financial Crisis. The election promises of tax cuts to lower and middle incomes indicate how
the National Party will try to lift the ‘rewards of working’. It has also signalled a continuationof its efforts to move people from benefits to jobs by, for example, targeting the Jobseeker
Support numbers and individualised job search support. On the other hand, it is unclear
whether there will be much movement on statutory minima beyond the already announced
increases to statutory minimum wages, and paid parental leave. Whether further employer
demands for increased flexibility will be accommodated are also unclear.
A government led by the Labour Party will led to significant public policy changes based on
their current platform. The issue is, though, that on the current poll results, such agovernment will probably need collaboration with both the Green Party and NZ First (andmaybe also the Mana-Internet parties). There are some policy overlaps, as highlighted by
Molineaux and Skilling (2014), but there are also some interesting differences. Additionally,
there will be pressure from trade unions to ensure that a stronger backing of collective
bargaining – including multi-employer collective bargaining – will occur. This, as well as theforeshadowed rolling back of reduction in individual employee rights, is bound to rise
employer animosity, bringing back memories of 1999-2000 and 2003-4 where employer
organisations attacked the announced public policy changes furiously.
While “it is difficult to predict, especially the future”, the 2014 election campaign has raisedsome thorny issues, such as productivity and economic growth, inequality and ‘working
poor’, skills shortages, and health and safety improvements. These are difficult issues tograpple with but regardless of party political colours, the next government is likely to be
judged on improvements in the outcomes associated with these fundamental employment
relations issues.

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New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 39(1): 33-51

The Minor Parties: Policies, Priorities and PowerJULIENNE MOLINEAUX* and PETER SKILLING**
Abstract
Since New Zealand’s first election under the mixed-member proportional electoral system,
neither National nor Labour has been able to govern without the support of one or moreminor parties. Predicting Employment Relations (ER) policy in New Zealand after the 2014
general election should thus take account of the positions of the minor parties. In this article,
we survey the ER policies of the smaller parties that may gain parliamentary representation
after this year’s election. We consider the factors that will determine the likely influence (ifany) that these parties might have on eventual policy development, including their bargaining
power, their policy priorities, and any wildcard factors that might shape their ability to workwith other parties.

Introduction: Minor Parties and Policy Change
In predicting how Employment Relations (hereafter ER) policy might develop after anelection, it is tempting and natural to focus on the policy platforms of the major parties
contesting that election (see Rasmussen, Fletcher & Hannam, 2014, in this issue). Minor
parties – almost by definition – are assumed to carry less influence over the eventual shape ofpolicy. Since 1996, however, when New Zealand adopted the proportional MMP voting
system, neither National nor Labour has been able to govern without the support of one ormore minor parties. While it certainly remains possible that National might be able to govern
alone after this year’s general election, we focus, in this article, on the policy positions of theminor parties contesting this year’s general election. We explore each party’s position on ER
policy, the priority that they give to ER, and the amount of power they might wield ingoverning arrangements after the election.
The policy influence of a party is not reducible to its numerical representation in parliament.
If a major party is reliant on a minor party in order to enact its policy programme, then thatminor party may wield more influence than its vote share suggest. On the other hand, minor
parties are sensitive to any public perception that they are the “tail wagging the dog” andhave historically used their veto power very selectively, if at all. As we noted in 2011, minor
parties’, “values and ideologies are often in tension with pragmatic considerations of what
they can and should demand of larger parties.” There is, therefore, “every possibility that aminor party will compromise in one policy area for the sake of influence in another” (Skilling& Molineaux, 2011: 10).
Entering into a governing arrangement with a larger party carries definite dangers for the
long-term prospects of a small party. There are times where achieving political office and*Julienne Molineaux, Lecturer, Faculty of Business and Law, Auckland University of Technology.
Peter Skilling, Senior Lecturer, Faculty of Business and Law, Auckland University of Technology.

**

33

New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 39(1): 33-51

policy influence in the short-term comes at the cost of longer-term viability and popularity(Muller &double-edged sword of its participation in governing arrangements since 2008. While theParty defends its relationship with National as the best way to exercise influence and secure“gains for our people” (Pita Sharples, as cited in Trevett, 2009), it has come at a high price.
Being formally aligned with a larger party includes undertaking to support that party on
matters of supply and confidence, which involves voting for the major party’s budget. The
budget process is intertwined with policy programmes, as these typically require money; thus
the minor party may findm those who see it as enabling, through their annual
support for the government’s budget, a right-wing policy agenda that contradicts its state
specific bills – as has been the case with most of National’s ER bills since 2008.
The influence of minor parties on policy-making, then, is neither straightforward nor easily
predictable. We suggest that it is dependent on (at least) the following factors:
1. The nature of the electoral system: what avenues exist for minor parties to gain votes
and achieve office (and thus at least potential influence)?
2. The bargaining power of minor parties: how reliant will the major party be on theminor party to advance its agenda? What other options are available to the respective
parties?
3. The policy priorities of minor parties: how important is it to a given minor party to
influence ER policy? How important is ER policy to the party’s voters and activists?
4. Wildcard factors, including the personal histories and relationships of key actors.
Lingering distrust and animosity between party leaders may derail what appear to besensible arrangements.
In this article, we begin by sketching the political context within which minor parties willcontest this year’s election (the first factor listed above), before discussing, in turn, each of
the minor parties contesting the election (in terms of factors two, three and four).

The Current Landscape for Minor Parties in New Zealand
The largest party after the 2011 election was National, with a party vote of 47.3 per cent(Electoral Commission, 2011). This translated into 59 seats in the 121-seat parliament. Sixtyone votes were required to pass legislation; National’s support deals with ACT (one MP), the; United Future (one MP) provided several possible combinations ofvotes to pass legislation. This was similar to its governing arrangements in the 2008-2011
period, but with fewer ACT MPs (five in 2008
in 2008)(Electoral Commission, 2008; 2011; Skilling & Molineaux, 2011).
The make-up of the next government is uncertain. While opinion polls show the National
Party holding a commanding lead over its nearest rival, Labour, the centre-right bloc
currently holds a much smaller lead over the centre-left bloc (Pundit, 2014). Further, there areuncertainties over which minor parties will end up represented in parliament: several minor
parties, being below the five per cent threshold, will not enter parliament unless they win anelectorate seat, and (in many cases) success in those crucial electorates may rely on more-orless explicit accommodations with a larger party. Further, voting preferences can be volatile34

New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 39(1): 33-51

with many voters making their decision close to Election Day (Vowles, 2003), and support
for incumbent governments often decreases during the course of an election year (Levine &Roberts, 2003). National’s vote of 47.3 per cent at the 2011 election, for example, came after
it had polled above 50 per cent earlier in the year, and even during the campaign period(Pundit, 2014). Despite the current dominance of the National Party in the polls, history
suggests that whichever party is in a position to form a government after the election will rely
on one or more support parties if they are to pursue their policy agenda.
There are currently five minor parties in parliament that will be contesting the 2014 generalelection: the Green Party, the Mana Party (but see below), t
First Party and the United Future Party. We survey each of these below, along with ACT
New Zealand (which was represented in parliament by John Banks until he resigned in June2014) and the Conservative Party. We allow for the fact that Mana has established a formal
arrangement with the fledgling Internet Party (the Internet Mana Party) for the purposes ofthis election.
Our survey is primarily a descriptive piece. We set out the parties’ positions on ER as
objectively as possible, indicate the extent to which ER policy is likely to be a priority foreach party, speculate as to how much influence each party may end up with, and identify any
likely “wildcard” factors that might influence the decisions that each party is likely to makeafter the election. We present our discussion in alphabetical order to avoid the possibility ofsuggesting priority. It is based on a range of documentary data: publicly available statements
taken from the parties’ websites, public speeches made by members of the parties, andparliamentary records of debates of relevant issues. A set of questions was sent directly to theConservative Party which – having not been in parliament – has little in the way of a voting
record or an archive of public statements on ER policy. At the time of publication they have
not responded.
To orient readers to the broad themes that we develop in more detail throughout this article,
Table 1 summarises the position of the minor parties surveyed below, based on their voting
record in parliament and – where possible – their public announcements and policy
statements.

35

New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 39(1): 33-51

Table 1: Voting records on ER legislation, 2011-2014
ER
policyclosesttowhich major
party

Current
number ofMPs

Type of BillACT Party

National

Conservatives
Green Party

0 (was 1)

ER(Secret
Ballotfor
Strikes)
Amendment
Bill

Minimum
Wage(Starting-out
Wage)
AmendmentBill

ER (ContinuityofLabour)Amendment
Bill - to selectCmte stageER
Amendment
Bill 2013

Holidays(Full
Recognitionof
Waitangi Day and
ANZAC
Day)
Amendment Bill
2013

Parental Leave and Employment
Protection (Six Months’ Paid
Leave) Amendment Bill

Fisheries(Foreign
Vessels and Other
Amendment Bill 2012

Member’s Bill:
Tau
Henare(National)
SupportGovt. Bill

Member’s Bill:
Jamie-Lee Ross
(National)
SupportGovt. Bill

Member’s
David(Labour)
OpposeMember’s Bill: Sue Moroney(Labour)

Govt. Bill

OpposeSupportSupportSupportLabourIndependent(Brendan Horan,
formerly NZ First)

Bill:
Clark

CharterMatters)

Support (support for gradualincrease to 12 months)*

14

OpposeOpposeOpposeOpposeSupportSupport (support for 13 months)

1-

OpposeOpposeOpposeSupportSupportSupport (with some amendments
requested)

Mana

Labour

1

OpposeOpposeOpposeOpposeSupportSupport (support for gradualextension to 12 months)**

Support at first reading; doesn’t
go far enough.

Māori Party

Labour3

OpposeOpposeOpposeOpposeSupportSupport

Opposed as may harm iwi fishingcompanies; wants exemption forthem.

NZ First

Labour7 (was 8)

OpposeOpposeOpposeOpposeSupportSupportSupportUnited Party

National(mostly)1

SupportSupport

OpposeSupportSupportSupport (support for 13 months
shared between parents)***SupportSources: New Zealand Parliamentary Debates, except:*Bruce (2014).
**Mana Movement (2014).
***3 News (2014).
36

New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 39(1): 33-51

ACT New ZealandPositioned to the right of National on the political spectrum, ACT New Zealand is a classicalliberal party formed to promote smaller government and individual liberty (ACT New Zealand,
n.d.a. Following the 2008 and 2011 elections, ACT entered into confidence and supply
arrangements with National in exchange for some policy wins and a ministerial post outside ofCabinet (ACT New Zealand, 2011). ACT contested the 2011 election under the leadership of Don
Brash but did not fare well; John Banks held the Epsom electorate for ACT with a reduced
majority, and with a Party vote of only 1.07 per cent, no additional MPs joined Banks inparliament (Electoral Commission, 2011). In 2014, ACT elected Jamie Whyte as their new leader
and selected David Seymour to run as candidate in the Epsom electorate, a seat ACT has held
since the 2005 election. The change of leadership initially saw a small boost in the polls for ACT,
but it has returned to sub one per cent ratings (Pundit, 2014). ACT’s only chance of returning toparliament is Epsom voters supporting Seymour. Even if they do, it is unlikely on current ratings
that Whyte will join Seymour in parliament.
Since 2011, ACT has been dogged by scandal; news media coverage of the Party has been
dominated by ignominy and personnel changes instead of policy. Banks faced allegations he filed
a false election return during his 2010 campaign to be Auckland Mayor. In May 2014, after morethan two years of negative publicity on the matter, he was found guilty of electoral fraud, andhaving earlier resigned as ACT party leader, resigned from parliament; because of the proximity to
the general election, a by-election has not been held, leaving the seat vacant. Banks’ resignation
reduced the government’s majority by one vote; consequently National cannot pass legislation
unlessjplans to pass the Employment Relations Amendment Bill (ERAB) 2013, which was supported by
AC b
ACT has announced education as its top policy priority in any coalition negotiations (Whyte,
2014a) This policy will extend the current partnership school programme to all schools; retaining
state funding of schooling, but removing compulsory state control of schools. Funding will follow
pupils in the form of a voucher and schools will compete for voluntary parental patronage (ACTNew Zealand, n.d.b). Should this policy be enacted, it will likely have a significant impact onteachers’ pay and conditions, and the future of collective employment agreements. While ACT
negotiated a partnership school policy (charter schools) trial as part of its 2011 coalition agreementwith National, convincing National to support a more radical redesign of schooling will depend on
ACT’s post-election bargaining power; such a policy may undermine National’s flagship expert
teachers and principals initiative (Investing in Educational Success).
ACT supported the ERAB 2013 and other National ER initiatives during the 2011-2014 term. If
returned to parliament in September, ACT will support any ER legislation that moves in a moremarket direction. ACT sees the employment relationship as a contract between equal parties andwishes to replace the current Employment Relations Act – which it describes as “a burden thatstifles growth, productivity and wages” – with contract law and elements of common law (Whyte
2014b). “The goal is to reduce regulation, while at the same time protecting people from clearly
abusive behaviour. Employment law must give freedom to employers and employees to come toarrangements that suit them both” (Whyte, ibid). Whyte has described the market as a“disciplining mechanism” that would ensure workplace safety if employers could be sued fornegligence (Whyte 2014a).
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New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 39(1): 33-51

Conservative Party
The Conservative Party was founded in 2011 by businessman Colin Craig, who continues toprovide significant funding for the party (Vance, 2013; Electoral Commission, 2014). Craig’s
foray into politics was inspired by a change to the law around the physical discipline of children,
colloquially known as the “anti-smacking law”. 117 out of 122 MPs voted for the law change,
despite vocal public opposition, which included a march organised by Craig, and a referendum inwhich 87 per cent of participants voted against the measure.
Convinced that politicians are not responsive to the public, the Conservative Party’s policy priority– and bottom line for providing confidence and supply – is binding referenda (Davison, 2014a).
Craig has clarified this demand to specify that any financial implications of a referenda must bepart of the voting options (Television New Zealand, 2014a). As its name suggests, the Party stands
for conservative moral values. Unsurprisingly, given its origins, newness, and size, the Party does
not have a detailed set of economic policies and no specific ER policies. They have responded tosurvey questions indicating support for a gradual increase in paid parental leave to 12 months, andagainst the adoption of a “living wage” to replace the minimum wage (Bruce, 2014). Craig
recognises that some families are struggling financially, and his Party’s solution is a $20,000
income tax-free threshold followed by a low flat tax, reasoning:…
k his approach instead of a minimum wage increase [because] increasing theminimum wage will result in extra costs to business owners and therefore job losses. We
do not support job losses. We are a party that wants everyone to be engaged in constructive
work that is rewarding and can meet each family’s needs” (Conservative Party, n.d.).
Craig has criticised Working for Families’ perverse incentives (Campbell, 2013), and Craig, anemployer of 25, says he supports paying people on their contribution rather than implementing pay
equity (University of Otago, 2014a). Craig says that, while his party supports freedom of
association and the role of unions, employment contracts are, “between an employer and an
employee. While either or both may seek assistance, the primary parties need to have a good faithworking arrangement between them” (Television New Zealand, 2014b).
In 2011 the newly-formed Conservative Party stood candidates in 52 electorates and compiled aparty list of 30. The Party did not win any electorates but managed to garner 2.65 per cent of theparty vote (Electoral Commission, 2011). They are polling between three and four per cent in thelead-up to the 2014 election (James, 2014) and are unlikely to win an electorate. Parties that do notmeet either of the criteria for parliamentary representation (five per cent of the party vote or one
electorate) have their votes reallocated proportionately to those parties that do win representation(Electoral Commission, 2013a). If the Conservatives fail to win an electorate and fail to make thefive per cent party vote threshold, their party votes would be reallocated to all parties in parliament
including those the Conservatives oppose, such as Mana and the Greens. In a tight election race,such a reallocation could be the difference between a National-led and a Labour-led government.
The Conservatives have said that if elected to parliament they will provide stability by supporting
the highest polling party in confidence votes (Keall, 2014). This is likely to be National. Theirinsistence on binding referenda as a condition for a coalition agreement will complicate
negotiations. Irrespective of the Party’s bargaining power, this policy is considered extremely
difficult to enact within the New Zealand constitutional framework (Geddis, 2014a). If not part of38

New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 39(1): 33-51

a government, the Conservatives will vote for issues on a case by case basis; their support forindividual National Party initiatives, including the ERAB are, at this stage, uncertain.

Green Party
Since its formation in 1990, the Green Party has always included a social justice element alongsideits environmentalist agenda (Green Party, n.d. a). It understands society in general – and the worldof work especially – as a realm of unequal power relations, and it has consistently sought to rectify
these power inequalities through the regulation of employment relations.
The Green Party is currently represented in parliament by 14 MPs. As we noted three years ago,
the Electoral Commission recognises the Party’s unique place in New Zealand politics, with its
voter support over an extended period of time distinguishing it from the other minor parties(Skilling & Molineaux, 2011). The Party’s electoral success – relative to the other minor parties
surveyed here – has allowed it to develop and promote its position on a wide range of policy
fronts. The Party has also had a representative – currently Denise Roche – on the Transport andIndustrial Relations Select Committee that considers proposed amendments to ER policy.
In parliament and in its other public statements, the Green Party has argued and voted against the
National-led government’s ER policy amendments. In their basic logic and structure, thearguments of the Green Party are not notably different from Labour’s, revolving around the same
key points: that the field of ER is inherently conflicted and unequal (and that National’s proposedchanges exacerbate this inequality); that the actual ER problem is low wages (rather than, as
National would suggest, a lack of efficiency and productivity); that collective bargaining is themost important vehicle for improving wages, conditions, and health and safety outcomes; and thatan approach to ER focussed on reducing costs and wages is not consistent with best management
practice.
According to National (Mike Sabin as cited in House of Representatives, 2014a), its ERAB 2013
was premised on the “reciprocal relationship between the employer and the employee” and on theneed for both parties to “work in a collaborative and respectful manner in a fashion that improves
productivity” since – so National claimed – “when productivity is improved, everyone is actually awinner.” The Green Party fundamentally rejects this vision of reciprocity and mutual benefit.
Invoking the ERA’s acknowledgment of “the inherent inequality of power in employment
relationships”, Denise Roche claimed (House of Representatives, 2013) that the Bill “tilts what
[ER]
…
’s
favour”. Speaking on another occasion, Roche situated the Bill in the contemporary context of atight labour market, noting that “there is little power and very little balance in the employment
relationship” in a setting of high unemployment. Jan Logie (House of Representatives, 2014a)
rejected Sabin’s claim of the widely-shared benefits of productivity gains by noting that such gains
in recent years “have been channelled into profits and chief executive officer pay packets rather
than being shared with the whole team, who actually generated this increased productivity.”
The Greens have articulated their stance on ER with a broader concern with inequality and thespectre of the ‘working poor’, or those subsisting on ‘poverty wages.’ Indeed, the Party insisted on
the right of all workers to “a decent living wage to enable them to fully participate in our society”
even before the concept of the living wage gained much prominence in New Zealand political
discourse (Green Party, 2011: 2). They explicitly linked their opposition to the ERAB (2013) with39

New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 39(1): 33-51

the Bill’s likely effects on economic inequality, arguing that “this legislation cements inequality”
and condemns “k…
” (Roche ascited in House of Representatives, 2014a). Expanding on Andrew Little’s (House ofRepresentatives, 2013) claim that “if the average wage in this country had actually matched
… [ ]
b b
$7
$8
b
”,
Denise Roche (House of Representatives, 2014a) argued that “…
externalised”. Through spending on social problems, and through schemes like Working for
Families, she stated “the taxpayer pays the social costs that come with poverty wages.”
Consistent with its insistence on “workplace democracy and collective organisation” as a responseto the “inherent potential for inequality of power” in employment relations (Green Party, 2011: 2),
Green Party MPs have argued in parliament that collective bargaining is necessary to improvewages, to ensure safe and healthy workplaces, and to protect vulnerable workers. Roche sees the
ERAB (2013) as a direct threat to collective organisation, arguing that “it is a blatant attempt toundermine unions and limit a worker’s ability to collectively negotiate decent wages andconditions with their employer”. The Bill, she continues, is “a return to the 1991 Employment
Contracts Act” (Roche as cited in House of Representatives, 2013). Polling consistently over 10
per cent, the Greens will almost certainly return to parliament. Their ER policy has many points of
convergence with Labour’s, and so its hopes of seeing a move towards its preferred ER policies
after the 2014 Election depend on the formation of a governing arrangement built around Labour,
rather than National. While an alliance between the Green and Labour Parties makes sense inpolicy terms (and especially in ER policy terms), sensitivities exist around public perception,
points of policy difference, and the relative electoral strengths of the two parties. Earlier this year,
Labour rejected the Green’s proposal for the two parties to “
… bthemselves as a future Labour/Greens Government” and commit to a stipulated post-election
division of cabinet positions (Television New Zealand, 2014c). While such an alliance would haveformalised an obvious policy congruence, Labour were perhaps wary that it may have alienatedsome voters, and other prospective coalition partners (Campbell, 2014).

Internet-Mana
One of the more noteworthy developments on the minor party landscape in 2014 has been theformation of Internet-Mana, a strategic alliance between the Mana Party (see Skilling &Molineaux 2011) and the Internet Party.1 The two constituent parties will continue to exist in theirown right, and Internet-Mana will be “an umbrella organisation, registered as a party in its own
right with the Electoral Commission” (Geddis, 2014b). This arrangement is designed to “takeadvantage of the electorate lifeboat rule in s.191(4)(b)(ii) of the Electoral Act” which states thatthe umbrella party “doesn’t have to reach the 5% threshold to get party list seats”, if one of thecomponent parties manages to secure an electorate seat (ibid). In this case, if Mana MP Hone
Harawira is successful in retaining his Te Tai Tokerau seat, then Internet-Mana will be entitled to
MPs in proportion to its combined party vote. During August and September, Internet-Mana
polling was consistently between two and three per cent (James, 2014). A vote of, say, 2.5 per centon election night would see three MPs elected from the joint party list, which has Mana leader
Harawira ranked first, Internet Party leader Laila Harré second, and Mana candidates Annette
Sykes and John Minto third and fourth respectively (Geddis, 2014b).
1

The Memorandum of Understanding between the two parties will be reviewed no later than five weeks after thegeneral election (Internet Mana, 2014).

40

New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 39(1): 33-51

Political scientist Grant Duncan (2014) notes that this alliance runs the risk of tarnishing thebrands of both parties, and of confusing “voters about what [each party] actually stand forpolitically.” Indeed, Internet-Mana has been accused of incoherence, with critics seeing little
ideological congruence between the avowedly left-wing Mana Party and Kim Dotcom, thebillionaire businessman founder of the Internet Party. As we noted in 2011, Mana is strongly
committed to action that would strengthen worker rights. In setting out its ER policy priorities,
Mana lists increasing the minimum wage, strengthening collective bargaining provisions (and,more generally, the power of workers and unions vis-a-vis employers), introducing industry pay
scales, increasing worker protections and rights and, more generally, endorsing greater state
involvement in creating meaningful and useful jobs (Mana Movement, 2014; Skilling &Molineaux, 2011). Hone Harawira, as Mana’s sole MP, has consistently voted against National’s
ER legislation in parliament. The Internet Party, meanwhile, which was announced and launchedin early 2014, does not even include ER among the six policy priorities (modern schools,
environment, independence, privacy and internet freedom, cheaper universal internet, andcopyright) listed on its website (Internet Party, 2014a).2
On the other hand, the selection in May of Lalia Harré (a former unionist, Alliance MP, ILO
representative in the South Pacific, and Green Party ‘Issues Director’) as the leader of the Internet
Party weakens the charge of policy incoherence. Harré’s political life has been dedicated to leftwing causes, especially in the field of ER. It is difficult to imagine Harré voting with National (oragainst established Mana policy) on ER matters. There are further moments of policy alignment.
Harawira has consistently spoken (and voted) against moves to increase the surveillance powers of
the State and to restrict the internet freedoms of individuals (Mana Movement, 2013a, b). Further,both parties are motivated by a strong desire to see John Key and the National Party voted out ofgovernment. The purpose of the Internet-Mana alliance is to ensure that any ‘anti-government’votes cast for either party are not wasted under the rules of the electoral system. To this end, thealliance allows the Internet Party to benefit from Mana’s expected electorate success in Te Tai
Tokerau; and it allows Mana to benefit from the Internet Party’s (and Kim Dotcom’s) profile,
online campaigning skills, and campaign finance. Kim Dotcom has donated more than $3 million
to the Internet Party’s campaign fund (Electoral Commission, 2014), a figure comparable to theamount spent in 2011 by the National Party (Walters & Watkins, 2014).
Based on stated policy and voting record (in the case of Mana) and potential MPs in parliament(Laila Harré, in the case of the Internet Party), both component parties of Internet- Mana are much
more closely aligned with Labour than with National. Labour leader David Cunliffe initiallyindicated a willingness to speak with Internet-Mana after the election (New Zealand Herald, 2014),
stating that “Labour would work with anyone who wanted to change the Government”, but later
confirmed he would not include the Party in his governing arrangements (Radio New Zealand,2014). His preferred partners in a potential coalition would be the Greens and New Zealand First(Trevett, 2014). This cautious level of openness is more, however, than that shown by then-leader
Phil Goff towards Mana in 2011 (Skilling & Molineaux, 2011).

2

The Internet Party’s Independence Policy does argue that New Zealand’s sovereign authority to determine its own
laws (including labour laws) is eroded by international agreements such as the prospective TPPA (Internet Party,
2014b).

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New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 39(1): 33-51

Māori Party
F

4

F

b

A

4
-right political spectrum. Despite
electorates giving their party vote to Labour, the Party has been in aconfidence and supply arrangement with the National-led government since 2008. Retiring leaders
Tariana Turia and Pita Sharples, and new leader Te Ururoa Flavell, defend their alliance withb
Flavell, 2014a, b; Sharples, 2014). ‘Wins’in the 2011- 4
ment strategy, inclusion of Treaty of
Waitangi clauses into legislation (such as the Public Finance (Mixed Ownership Model)
Amendment Act 2012), substantial ongoing tobacco tax increases, and the Party’
4
Until the recent resignation of ACT MP John Banks from parliament, National has not required‘surplus majority coalition’ (Boston, 2011).
This arrangement – having confidence and supply agreements with more minor parties thannecessary – has reduced the bargaining power of each minor party in governing arrangements.
As we previously noted (Skilling &priority to ER, it has nonetheless opposed National’s ER direction. The Party are campaigning on
an increase in trades training and a minimum wage of $18.80 per hour (Fox, 2013). Flavell (2013)
says:
the Government should focus on reducing wage inequality by targeting high wages ofexcessively high…
inequality over the last 25 years as a major threat to our economic well-being and social
cohesion.
They have continued to vote against most of National’s ER legislation, which has often passedwith United Future and ACT party support (See Table 1).
This parliamentary term saw the government respond to publicity about poor conditions and low
pay for workers on foreign-owned and operated vessels fishing in New Zealand territorial waters.
An inquiry led to legislation, the Fisheries (Foreign Charter Vessels and Other Matters)
Amendment Bill 2012. This Bill requires the boats to be re-flagged as New Zealand boats, so Newbviews of an Iwi Leaders’ Group (Inns, 2014), lobbied for these provisions to be gradually phasedin for iwi quota holders, saying the measures would “disproportionately affect iwi owners ofsettlement quota who lack the scale, capital and flexibility of other quota owners to make otherarrangements for catching their annual catch entitlement” (Flavell as cited in House ofRepresentatives, 2014b). The government declined an exemption for iwi quota holders, saying “theCrown’s right to develop policy in respond to contemporary issues” did not breach Treaty
settlements or Maori fisheries claims (Goodhew as cited House of Representatives, 2014b). The
legislation did not have its final reading before parliament rose for the 2014 general election; given
support from both Labour and National, it is likely to resurface after the election.
Despite having a moderating effect on the National-led government, and some clear policy gains,b
During the 2014 election
42

New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 39(1): 33-51

campaign, Flavell has been at painsF
2014c).
Electoral support for the Party is heavily concentrated among low-wage earners and beneficiaries,
and former co-leader Pita Sharples has acknowledged that his party lost a number of arguments
Cin 2011 only 48 per cent of the Party’s voters believedb’s association with National (Miller & Curtin, 2011).
While the retirement of founders and leaders Tariana Turia and Pita Sharples adds to uncertainty
over the future of the Party in parliament, Turia’s departure opens up the possibility of smootherrelationships with her former party, Labour. New leader Te Ururoa Flavell has stressed
Party is a potential coalition partner for both Labour and National.
unlikely to prioritise ER policy in coalition negotiations, their voting record demonstrates awillingness to support a more left-wing policy agenda on the issue, irrespective of thegovernment’s stance.

New Zealand First
Formed in 1993, New Zealand First has proved to be the most enduring minor party under MMP.
From a high-point of 17 MPs after the 1996 Election, New Zealand First’s support declined to thepoint of disappearing from parliament in 2008. The party returned to parliament in 2011, securing
6.6 per cent of the overall vote, which translated to 8 MPs3 even though polling that year
consistently placed them well below the five per cent threshold (Electoral Results, 2011; Skilling& Molineaux, 2011). Polling in the 2014 campaign mostly rates the Party’s support above the five
per cent threshold (Pundit, 2014). New Zealand First faces some electoral competition from theConservative Party, who have policy overlap and are targeting a similar range of voters; New
Zealand First leader Winston Peters went as far as accusing Colin Craig of plagiarising his polices(Davison, 2014b. If New Zealand First is returned to parliament in 2014, it has a very real chanceof holding the balance of power, and many commentators are already addressing the vexed
question of which bloc New Zealand First is more likely to align itself with (Watkins, 2014;
National Business Review, 2013).
New Zealand First’s founding principles include an appeal to economic nationalism (Miller,
2003), and its key policy priorities lie in the retention of state-owned assets in public control,
restrictions on the foreign control of the local economy and property, and the protection of local
industries and jobs (New Zealand First, 2014a). ER policy is not a top priority for New ZealandFirst: ER is not among the 20 policy areas listed on the ‘Policies’ section of the party’s website(New Zealand First, 2014b). Still, its policies listed above – as well as its consistent support forincreasing the minimum wage (Peters, 2013) – align New Zealand First more logically withLabour and the Green Party than with National and ACT. Indeed, since 2011, New Zealand First
has voted against National’s proposed ER amendments as well as strongly opposing its
privatisation programme. The Party’s spokesperson on industrial relations, Barbara Stewart,
described the 2012 ERAB as “an affront to the rights of workers” that was part of a pattern of “theslow erosion of workers’ rights as anti-worker legislation is pursued” (House of Representatives,2013). Stewart, a non-voting member of the Transport and Industrial Relations Select Committeethat considered the Bill, echoed the position of Labour and the Greens that the “employment
relationship is not a level playing field” (Transport and Industrial Relations Select Committee,

3This tally dropped to seven MPs after the expulsion of Brendan Horan in December 2012. Horan has remained inparliament as an independent MP (Small, Watkins & Vance, 2012).

43

New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 39(1): 33-51

2013: 19), and accused National, through the Bill of “pandering to its extreme-right minority at theexpense of the more moderate majority” (House of Representatives, 2013).
New Zealand First emphasises the need for balance in ER. “There is a really fine balance”, Stewart
argues, “between assuring and affirming the rights of workers, on one hand, and allowing enoughworker flexibility so as not to hinder any business’s production or productivity.” The party
consciously positions itself as centrist and pragmatic, rejecting what it sees as the ideologicalfixities of Labour, National and their allies. “Unlike other political parties”, Peters claims, “we see
the government’s role as the impartial umpire or referee. Where the industrial relations goal posts
are put in the right place and stay in the right place.” There is a plea here for a bipartisan consensus
that would ensure stability and certainty to all parties. New Zealand First’s claims that National
has “distorted” the ER system (Peters, 2013) and eroded workers’ rights (Stewart as cited in Houseof Representatives, 2013) sit within its broader emphasis on protecting “ordinary New Zealanders”
from predatory elites. Its apparent convergence with a left bloc is not straightforward, however. As
well as clear differences in other policy areas, there remains a degree of distrust and personal
antipathy between Peters and the Green Party. At the same time, John Key – who ruled out
working with New Zealand First in 2011, has refused thus far to do so in 2014 (Davison, 2014c).
If New Zealand First reach the five per cent threshold this year, they may well hold the balance ofpower in governing arrangements. Their voting record on ER may not safely predict how they willdeal with this situation, given that ER policy does not appear to be a high priority for the Party.

United Future
The United Future Party is represented in parliament by sole MP and leader, Peter Dunne. DunneŌ
1984, which he first won representing the Labour Party.
United Future (formerly the United Party) was formed in 1995 to provide a centrist coalition
option for Labour and National, acting as a check on extremism (Dunne, 2013a). With the
exception of the 2002 election, United Future have performed poorly in the Party vote, but Dunne
has consistently held his electorate seat, enabling a continuity in parliament and access toparliamentary resources. Dunne has been a Minister in both Labour-led and National-led
governments (Skilling &s Molineaux, 2011).
DŌelectorate MP; at just 0.6 per cent, the Party
vote was too low for a second United Future MP. Once again, Dunne negotiated a supply andconfidence agreement with National and became a Minister outside of Cabinet with the Revenue,
Associate Health and Associate Conservation portfolios.
Employment relations are not a high priority policy area for United Future and it does not havedetailed policy in the area (Skilling & Molineaux, 2011). Dunne’s policy priorities for 2014
include more flexible superannuation payments and retirement ages, and higher priority forrecreational fishing bag limits (University of Otago, 2014b). Dunne has supported popular
opposition legislation, such as the Mondayising of Waitangi Day and ANZAC day public holidays
that fall on weekends, and the extension of paid parental leave to 26 weeks, calling it “a step in theright direction”. United Future’s paid parental leave policy fits within its broader emphasis on
supporting families, viewing it as an investment that will provide long-term benefits for social
development (3 News, 2012; 2014).

44

New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 39(1): 33-51

Dunne opposed Jamie-Lee Ross’ private member’s Bill, The Employment Relations (Continuity ofLabour) Amendment Bill, commenting that he saw potential for its misuse:
I think that the right to strike, whether one agrees with strikes or not, is an important part ofour industrial law framework and I think that what this bill potentially does is make it very
easy for employers to ditch striking staff very quickly (Chapman, 2013).
On the whole, however, Dunne has been supportive of National’s ER policies and direction, voting
to support the Employment Relations (Secret Ballot for Strikes) Amendment Bill, the Minimum
Wage (Starting-out Wage) Amendment Bill and the stalled ERAB Bill 2013.
Dunne has been open about favouring a National-led government after the 2014 election, over a
Labour-led government (Dunne, 2014; Satherly, 2014). At the time of writing, no polls have beenŌD’s likely success in his electorate is hard to predict due
to boundary changes, the retirement of his main electoral competitor, former Labour MP, Charles
Chauval (Raue, 2014), and uncertain reputational damage following a series of controversies that
dogged Dunne and United Future in 2013. These include the brief de-registration of United Future
for failing to maintain 500 members (Electoral Commission, 2013b), the resignation of Dunne as a
Minister following unsubstantiated allegations that he leaked highly sensitive information to ajournalist (Trevett, 2013), and Dunne’s shepherding through parliament ‘game-changing’legislation around the control of psychoactive substances (Dunne, 2013b). Dunne was reinstated asa Minister in early 2014 and his Psychoactive Substances Amendment Act was amended following
a public outcry (Psychoactive Substances Amendment Bill).
If re-elected Dunne will not bring any other MPs into parliament for United Future; if the Party
vote continues to track close to zero, his seat effectively becomes overhang. While his preference
is to support a National-led government, it is not easy knowing how Dunne would react to a
Labour-led government. Dunne’s penchant for incremental policy gains and experience working
with Labour may incline him to negotiate some key United Future policy wins with a Labour-led
government, in return for confidence and supply, but – given his stated antipathy towards Labour’sother potential coalition partners of the Greens, Mana, and New Zealand First (see for example,
Dunne, 2013a) on NZ First, and Fox, 2013 on the Greens) – it is possible he may stay out ofgoverning arrangements altogether and vote for legislation on a case by case basis.

Conclusion
The make-up of the government that is formed after this year’s general election will almost
certainly be important for ER polices and laws: this is one policy area where the major parties
markedly differ. Since 1996, minor parties in New Zealand have exercised a degree of influence
over how ER policy has developed. The stalling of the ERAB (2013) this term once John Banks
resigned from parliament illustrates the potential importance of minor parties to the policy process.
In this article, we have argued that the exact degree of influence enjoyed by a given minor party isa function of its bargaining power (determined by the minor party’s number of votes, the otheroptions available to it, and – crucially – the options open to the major party) and by the extent towhich the minor party sees ER – as a policy priority.

45

New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 39(1): 33-51

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New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 39(1): 52-67

Are vulnerable workers really protected in New Zealand?
DANAË ANDERSON* and RUPERT TIPPLES**
Abstract
Increasing migration to New Zealand is indicative of globalisation’s influence on working
arrangements and employment conditions. Although the “compression of time and space” (Harvey,
2000: 16) has opened borders and increased opportunity for many, it has also exacerbated worker
vulnerability for a sizeable proportion of workers. One subset of such workers are migrants. Migrant
workers often obtain precarious work through community connections or labour contractors; somehave language difficulties; and a significant proportion of these migrants work in sectors withrelatively high accident rates. It may be assumed, therefore, that they are likely to be more vulnerable
to work accidents and injuries (Benach, Muntaner, Delclos, Menéndez & Ronquillo, 2011). Initially,
we explore who are categorised as vulnerable workers using Sargeant and Tucker’s 2009 framework;
concluding that, for many, protection is largely rhetoric not reality. Then we ask three questions:
What are the existing protections for New Zealand’s vulnerable workers? Secondly, why are thesemechanisms ineffective? Finally, what can be done to improve the protection of such vulnerable
workers?
All New Zealand workers are protected by the state through public policy, monitoring, andenforcement with varying efficacy. While recent legislative amendments acknowledge some newfeatures of vulnerability, on their own, they are recognised as insufficient to ensure compliance from
employers and employees. As a result of public sector restructuring and budgetary constraints, there
is also a lack of enforcement mechanisms to iterate legislative oversight. Moreover, many insecure
and precarious workers will not advance entitlement claims due to employment dependency.
Most additional protections are likely, in the short-term. to come from collective worker initiatives
and, to a more limited extent, by unions’ collective labour actions. These are illustrated through casestudies of new radical trade unions such as Unite and First’s Union Network of Migrants, with afocus on membership ethnicity and new organisational devices, such as social media, communication
campaigns and leadership development. Such features are contrasted with a non-union but
demonstratively successful collective, the Filipino Dairy Workers in New Zealand (Inc.) of
Ashburton in dairy farming, and of the role of the Canterbury Indonesian Society (Inc.) in the‘rescue’ and repatriation of the Indonesian crew of the Oyang 75. Finally, discussion of the
Recognised Seasonal Employers (RSE) Scheme is presented to query whether this model is a
successful response to migrant exploitation and could offer an appropriate foundation for otherprimary industries.

Introduction
Changing employment conditions in New Zealand have resulted in certain groups of workers
collecting at the periphery of the labour market. This work is typically located in tedious or
hazardous positions with little regulation, supervision, and poor remuneration (Anderson, Lamare, &*Researcher at Work Research Institute, Auckland University of Technology, New Zealand
Associate Prof in Employment Relations, Faculty of Commerce, Lincoln University, Christchurch, New Zealand**52

New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 39(1): 52-67
Hannif, 2011; Bauder, 2006; Jayaweera & Anderson, 2009). However, while these jobs are often
relatively hidden, they are nonetheless vital to some of New Zealand’s major export sectors. For acountry which depends on its export industries for economic survival, to rely on such groups of
marginalised, vulnerable, and often migrant workers is placing those industries at risk. Therefore,
addressing the causes and remedies for vulnerable employment is a matter of considerable domestic
importance.
Sargeant and Tucker (2009) group three risk factors contributing to migrant worker vulnerability: migration factors
 characteristics related to migrants and their country of origin
 receiving country conditions.
We define vulnerable workers following Ori and Sargeant (2013: xii) as[…] someone working in an environment where the risk of being denied employment rights
is high and who does not have the capacity or means to protect themselves from that abuse.
Standing’s denizen (resident alien) category from ‘The Precariat’ (2010) also describes this groupwell: individuals who have a right to be in New Zealand, but who are expected to comply withspecific visa requirements which may increase their vulnerability. These groups may be exposed to
exploitation because they need work to generate income, but also to repay debt (often incurred to‘middlemen’ or migration/education agents), and for remittances to family, friends and community:
often the reason they migrated. Many migrant workers have visa validity conditional on
employment, placing increased (and some would say unbalanced) power in the hands of theiremployers with the potential for exploitation and abuse.

What are the sectors where vulnerable work is found?
The makeup of the New Zealand economy is dominated by primary sector production where exports
have reached record levels of $37.7 billion in 214 – about $11.3 billion more than previously forecast(Rae, 2014). With annual exports in excess of NZ $13.7 billion, the dairy industry is New Zealand’s
biggest export earner, accounting for more than 29 per cent by value of the country’s merchandise
exports (Dairy Companies Association of New Zealand, 2014, National Business Review,2014). Horticultural products now account for eight per cent of New Zealand’s total merchandise
exports, and in the year to 30 June 2013, the horticulture industry generated more than $3.6 billion inexport revenue, with the major products being wine ($1.2 billion) and kiwifruit ($934 million) (Plant
and Food Research, 2014). If fishing ($1.3 billion) is added, these industries are responsible for$18.6 billion in exports or about a third of total merchandise exports (New Zealand Trade andEnterprise, 2014). Such significant economic impact is matched by influence on employment
conditions in the primary sector.
Extant literature shows that the employment of migrant labour in the primary sector is increasingly
widespread where non-standard, precarious employment and the use of unregulated, contingent
labour is the norm (see McLaren, Firkin, Spoonley, Dupuis, de Bruin & Inkson, 2004; OCED, 2009).
The greatest proportionate growth in migrant labour worldwide has been among low-skill, low-wage
workers in sectors, such as caregiving, agriculture, hospitality, and food services, expanding in
response to employer demand, but with little public debate (Faraday, 2012). With the primary
production sector forming a significant part of the New Zealand economy and external trade, thesector’s employment practices are paramount for continued increases in productivity as well as
maintenance of external trading reputation (Tipples & Whatman, 2009).
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New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 39(1): 52-67
Export conditions are the main influence on sectorial employment trends where employment
numbers fluctuate according to seasonal, economic, and climatic conditions. As horticulture andagriculture are seasonal in nature and largely unskilled, the difficulties of recruitment and retention
domestically are pertinent. Staffing uncertainties continue to be a major concern to growers (Tipples& Whatman, 2010, Horticulture NZ & New Zealand Institute of Plant and Food Research, 2010) anddairy farmers (Tipples, Hill, Wilson & Greenhalgh, 2013), so potential employers often choose
labour contractors and migrant workers who complete the work when needed. Labour contractors
are usually employed by the owner/operator to complete a job and recruit and employ their own
staff: migrant workers who may be illegal workers. As the contractor bears responsibility for
employment, the farmers hiring them can ‘step away’ from the accountability of direct employment
and its inherent legal obligations. Indeed, a typical defence of poor labour practices is that the owner
was unaware (Stone, 2014; Clark, 2011).
As a primary industry, horticulture has been an avenue for migrant employment for some time (seeRogaly, 2008, Garson, 1999; Horticulture Week, 2008; Kandel, 2008; Shelley, 2007). Horticulture
also remains a significant casual employer and of the 40,000 seasonal jobs, 30,000 are located in theforestry and horticulture sectors (Lamm et al., 2011). However, as in many developed countries,
farm work is no longer regarded as a respectable or sufficiently attractive or available occupation to
the local population. Further, many potential workers are domiciled far from the major regions of
production, and transferring for short work periods is unattractive and institutionally difficult as
various rural areas in New Zealand have restricted welfare payments to discourage residence(Coppel, Dumont, & Visco, 2001; Guthman, 2004; Horticulture Week, 2008). Therefore, in manycases, the workers available can be assumed to be contingent migrant workers. While they may notchoose to work in such industries or conditions, they may be limited by work experience, English
language competency, and a lack of other job opportunities (Mackenzie & Forde, 2009; McKay,
Craw, & Chopra, 2006; Pollert & Charlwood, 2009).
In spite of worker vulnerability leading to access and information-gathering difficulties, Anderson,
Jamieson and Naidu (2012) gathered evidence showing migrant workers experienced exploitativeand illegal working conditions. A significant proportion of those surveyed worked above the legal
hours stipulated in sectors with relatively high accident rates. Average hours worked per week were
29 hours (above the legal limit of 20), and a spread of hours between 16 and 55. Many obtained
work from ethnic community connections or labour contractors, and all 93 respondents were paid
below the minimum wage. Furthermore, just under half of these workers had any formal written
contract. This research presents evidence of industry reliance on migrants working outside their visa
conditions as well as the lack of monitoring or enforcement of employment minima by the relevant
regulatory agencies. In an export-dependent economy like New Zealand, this can have far reaching
implications.
The Recognised Seasonal Employers (RSE) scheme has attempted to address and mitigate some of
the above problems as well as ameliorating worker shortages (Cameron, 2011), but secondary(illegal) labour market employment practices continue and undermine the primary sector as a whole.
Moreover, the inability of vulnerable workers to enforce their contract or statutory rights creates asituation of commodification of workers, as well as creating workers for positions no domestic
workers are prepared to accept. Guthman (2004) premises that this vulnerability is used to ensurecompliance in the labour force; these are core jobs on which the primary industry is reliant, but for
peripheral wages (Anderson & Naidu, 2009; Walsh & Deery, 1997). This peripheral work creates aworkforce without comprehensive rights even though the jobs are economically essential.

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New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 39(1): 52-67
The Foreign Charter Vessel (FCV) fishing sector has also seen human rights abuses occurring within
New Zealand’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ). Deregulation and a drive to increase profit margins
from large fishing corporates (including major iwi enterprises) have encouraged the use of foreign
vessels and foreign crews in the New Zealand fishing industry (Stringer, Simmons, & Coulston,2011). Exploitation and cruelties were elucidated in two South Korean flagged boats within a shorttime period: Oyang 70 with six deaths in 2010, and desertion by Indonesian crew of the Oyang 75 in
Lyttelton in 2011. “Crew members on the Oyang 75 reported officers beating them for working too
slowly, and making crew members remain standing in a fixed position for hours as punishment forperceived slights to officers” (Stringer et al., 2011: 8).
So we ask: what are the existing protections for New Zealand’s vulnerable workers? Secondly, why
are these protections ineffective? Finally, what can be done to improve the protection of vulnerable
workers in primary industry?

What are the existing protections for New Zealand’s vulnerable workers?
The response to the first question reviews current legislation and its implementation. While the state
regulates labour supply through its migration policy (Rogaly, 2008) as well as a protective dimension
to regulation, varied viewpoints remain on its effectiveness protecting migrant workers (Anderson &Naidu, 2009; Bocock et al., 2010). Firstly, at the point of entry for new migrants, government
regulation should ensure benefits for a variety of stakeholders and to avoid abuse of individuals aswell as ensure social cohesion (ICFTU, 2005). In New Zealand immigration and employment law:
1. Onus is on the employer to act lawfully
2. An under-resourced inspectorate limits enforcement capability
3. There is inconsistent coverage of protective legislation among workers (for example,
Accident Compensation).
Essentially, major statutory protections are under the Employment Relations Act 2000, the Healthand Safety in Employment Act 1992, The Holidays Act 2003, the Minimum Wages Act 1983 (all as
amended). To these must be added the ILO Covenants relating to migrant workers and the Code ofPractice for Foreign Chartered Vessels (FCVs), approved by the Department of Labour (DoL) in
2004, and related international conventions covering migrant seafarers and fishermen. There is an
obvious need for strengthening migration governance, as currently linking visa entitlement to a
position with limited transfer ability appears to undermine worker protection. New Zealand also still
maintains reservations on two of the eight core ILO Conventions1. Although legislative deficits
relating to domestic labour markets exist, questions must also be asked about the global mechanisms
encouraging worker vulnerability and how to reduce the ‘attraction’ of relocation for work.

Why are these protections ineffective?
International labour migration has been described as “a new geography of centrality and marginality”(Sassen, 1998: xxv), reflecting widening gaps not only in terms of structures and dynamics of
economic activities across the world, but also in terms of employment equity issues faced bymigrants relative to the native population in host economies. While some interest in this area has
been indicated by economic and policy research, the lack of access to or visibility of migrant workers
1

C87 Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organise Convention, 1948 C138 - Minimum Age
Convention, 1973 (No. 138)

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New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 39(1): 52-67
creates problems for both government agents and researchers alike. Improving labour legislation is
the responsibility of domestic governments but the available national data does not consistently or
accurately reflect what is occurring in New Zealand’s labour market; so changes are often initiated ina reactive ‘ad hoc’ fashion, or as a response to negative publicity (Faraday, 2012; Woodhouse, 2013;
Logie, 2014).
Further, the recent disestablishment of the Department of Labour (DoL) and merger of its functions
into the mega-agency Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE), compromising of
14 agencies has meant there is no longer a single agency focused on labour issues (Lamm,
Rasmussen & Anderson, 2013). Combined with a lack of policy coherence, geographic spread,business numbers and deficiency of information-sharing between the ministries responsible for
migration and labour, weaknesses are apparent within domestic legislative frameworks, refuting theassumption that “laws are self-enforcing and have full compliance” (Fenn & Veljanovski, 1988:
1055). While enforcement law mechanisms in New Zealand are proclaimed to be “considered
generally robust” (Williams, 2009: 17), the precarious nature of the migrant labour market generates
anxieties about the monitoring and enforcement weaknesses of government agencies (see Anderson& Naidu, 2010; ILO, 2002, 1991; McLaren et al., 2004).
Domestic monitoring and enforcement capabilities are constrained by funding2, whereby the powerof current regulation and the limited monitoring capacity of the INZ and DoL inspectorates(numbering approximately 35 compliance officers and less than 100 health and safety inspectors,
respectively, as of August 2013) is limited. Thirty-five labour inspectors have responsibility forensuring compliance in New Zealand (and fisheries within our exclusive economic zone). According
to the latest Household Labour Force Survey (March 2014), 2,318 million people are employed in
New Zealand. The ILO sets the desired number of labour inspectors as one per 10,000 workers indeveloped countries (CTU, 2014). This equates to one labour inspector per every 66,228 people, well
below recommended levels (ILO, 2006). There is also criticism that:
The labour inspectorate’s focus on high risk areas leaves them with little resource to deal
with day to day breaches of the minimum employment rights (particularly in un-unionised
industries such as hospitality) and many workers experience major delays or denials ofeffective enforcement of their rights (CTU, 2014),
and “in Auckland inspectors spend 54 per cent of their work time investigating abuse cases, while
across New Zealand that work takes up 33 per cent of their time” (Fenton, 2013).3
Nevertheless, there is “tacit tolerance” of the presence of migrant workers by governments during
economic booms while, officially, governments aim to be seen as “combating” or “fighting”
irregular migration (Wickramasekara, 2008 as cited in Williams, 2009: 18; Ministry of Justice, 2009;
DoL, 2006). Further, the level of employer compliance reflects the tensions between needs of‘flexible’ labour market and desire to closely monitor/control migrants for immigration control
purposes (Bernstein, Lippel, Tucker & Vosko, 2006). Employee wages are typically the only
variable that can be manipulated by employers, with costs such as power and water a fixed expense.
2

However, approximately NZ$7 million has been allocated over the next four years to fund the addition of six newlabour inspectors and seven Immigration New Zealand (INZ) staff with a mandate to investigate and “stamp out” migrant
exploitation and unlawful practices. This funding is for the Canterbury area only (Williams, 2014).
3

The establishment of WorkSafe NZ will increase total health and safety inspectorate resourcing by more than 65 percent. This will include increasing the number of core inspectors from 115 to 200, and the number of high hazards andmajor facilities inspectors from six to 29. However, this does not include labour inspectors.

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New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 39(1): 52-67
This makes regulation of often invisible, unmeasured workers extremely difficult, given the financial
incentives for non-compliance with minimum wage regulations. Its prevalence and causes arevaried, with theories suggesting that compliance depends largely on the likelihood of detection, as
well as the certainty and severity of sanctions imposed for infringements (Ruhs & Anderson, 2006;
Kirchler, 1999; Fenn & Veljanovski, 1988). Given the low penalties and number of successfulprosecutions, businesses could confidently feel that the opportunity versus risk is firmly weighted intheir favour.
Nonetheless, the inability of vulnerable migrant workers to enforce their contractual or statutory
rights creates a situation of worker commodification. When large migrant populations work in
precarious conditions, governance is difficult; regulating the problem of unfair competition ischallenging, and advantages go to enterprises using workers of irregular status at cheap wages. The
irony of this bifurcated labour market is that unemployed and foreign workers exist side by side,
potentially leading to conflict between local communities and migrant workers. Accusations often
repeated in the media about ‘migrants taking jobs’ fail to recognise that these jobs are neverdesignated nor intended for local workers as they fail to fall within the standard labour market and its
legal obligations. Whole industries seemingly reliant on an underclass of workers make a mockeryof rising wages and legislative protection.
Anderson et al.’s (2012) study of the working lives of student migrant workers in New Zealandhorticulture, and Stringer et al.’s (2011) study of labour and human rights abuses aboard foreign
fishing vessels illustrate how employers and contractors can extort more work from the employees
for less pay because the vulnerable workers cannot afford to abandon their employment. The ability
to access or protect those engaged in precarious work is further limited by low union membership,especially amongst private sector rural workers. Tension also remains as union preference andprotection are for documented and subscribed members, while migrants rarely engage withestablished institutions or organisations that could represent their interests.

What can be done to improve the protection of vulnerable workers?4
Recognising the limitations of regulation, monitoring, and enforcement, the third question is
answered by looking at the development of new union features, especially geared to the increasing
number of migrants in the workforce, and by considering other collective actions by migrants outside
the trade union movement. These actions are contrasted with the operation of the RSE scheme for
New Zealand horticulture and viticulture. From these examples, positive policy suggestions are madeas to how a similar scheme might be of benefit to New Zealand dairy farming (Tipples et al., 2013).

New Unions and Alternative Forms of Organising
At an international level, ASEAN trade unions meeting in Hanoi with ILO involvement haverecently united to protect migrant workers who are vulnerable to abuse, exploitation and unfair
treatment. Bilateral actions between unions in sending and receiving countries to formulate mutual
protocols were discussed (Vietnam News, 2013). Acknowledged is that unions must find ways ofrepresenting non-traditional workers, where “Dependent and independent contractors, agency
4Council of Trade Unions (2013) Under Pressure: A Detailed Report into Insecure Work in New Zealand outlines 20
fields in which positive actions can be taken to reduce the incidence of ‘insecure work’.

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New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 39(1): 52-67
workers, temporary workers, farm workers and small farmers are categories of workers which would
benefit from collective representation” (Ritchie, 2013). With some notable exceptions (e.g. Unite),current union structures are unable to represent such workers because they are structured to represent
and protect the interests of workers in traditional employment with full time work and transparent
contracted conditions. In the non-documented, particularly rural sector where work is often in a subcontracting relationship, it is difficult, indeed unrealistic, to expect effective union reach.
However, two unions have been showing active interest in vulnerable migrant workers in New
Zealand. First, Unite (formed in 2005) which has been prominent in campaigns against fast food
giant McDonald’s for its discriminatory and anti-union employment policies (Unite Union, 2013),
and against another fast food giant Burger King (Kumar, 2013). By targeting traditionally nonunionised workplaces in the service sector such as hotels, restaurants, casinos, cinemas, call centres,
security, malls and language schools as well as instituting a lower fee structure, they have reversed
an overall trend of declining union membership. With political engagement high on their agenda,
they vocally criticise government policy settings for worker protection and offer an alternative formof organising.
Second is First Union’s Union Network of Migrants (UNEMIG), launched in August 2012 in
Auckland. Aiming to protect the rights and welfare of migrant workers, they also provide
information resources and media campaigns, UNIMEG represents and bargains across many
service sectors in retail, transport and logistics, finance, wood, and textile/clothing/baking (First
Union, 2014). UNIMEG have said migrant worker issues had stayed under the radar because
many foreign workers were employed in small businesses working for other immigrants, where it
was easy for employers to take advantage of their workers (in Glass, 2013). Vocal in theircriticism of migrant workers’ exploitation by workplaces on which they are reliant for work visas,
First Union spokesperson, Robert Reid, states “These migrants, when they come to New Zealand,in their passport – their visa – they can only stay here as long as they are working for the person
who is nominated on their visa.” Reid also acknowledges: “Migrant workers are frequently
victims of under legal minimum wage pay, abuse, discrimination, bullying, and harassment in theworkplace” (as cited in Kumar, 2012).

New Zealand dairy migrants
In addition to developments in trade unions as collective representatives of migrant workers, othernon-union collectives have taken a growing role in the relatively unorganised migrant worker space.
In dairy farming, propelled by the recent world commodity boom, rapid expansion has been
constrained by problems with the recruitment and retention of labour. From 2006, these problems
have been addressed by the employment of short-term (three to five years) migrants on work visas,nearly half of whom originate from the Philippines. The inflow of these ‘skilled’ migrants was
explored using Sargeant and Tucker’s framework to document the working, health and safety
experiences of Filipino dairy workers in mid-Canterbury, in New Zealand’s South Island (Tipples,
Rawlinson, & Greenhalgh, 2012).
The Filipino Dairy Workers in New Zealand Inc. was set up in Ashburton in 2006 as an association
to promote much needed social contact, and then advocacy for the many members experiencing
employment or immigration difficulties. The overall objective of the group is to prevent exploitationof members by recruitment agencies and dairy farm employers (Tipples et al., 2012). They educate
members about their rights in New Zealand employment law and the requirements placed on dairy
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New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 39(1): 52-67
farm employers for their employees.
However, concerns continue to abound about farm working conditions. CTU President, Helen Kelly,
has documented long hours and limited days off, making the salary of many farm workers below theminimum wage. These are not undocumented jobs in the secondary labour market, but are advertised
positions. Callister and Tipples (2010: 12) note about wage levels that
When the long hours worked by dairy workers are taken into consideration, they are very low
at an average level … [O]nly 39.4 per cent of farmers record staff hours, leaving considerable
scope for paying an hourly rate of pay below the minimum hourly rate of pay set for a normal
40 hour week5 (Minimum Wages Act 1983).
This comes on the back of nearly three out of four dairy farmers having been caught breaking basic
employment laws in a government crackdown in December 2013. Labour inspectors with the MBIE
started visiting farms to check on compliance with minimum employment rights. Results of theinitial visits revealed that employers on 31 out of 44 farms were breaking the law, a result the
Ministry called “disappointing”. Many breaches involved time recording, where employer and staff
had to sign timesheets confirming hours worked. In eight instances, workers had been employed
without proper contracts. No prosecutions had been laid, a ministry spokeswoman acknowledged,
but inspectors would follow up enforcement notices to check whether breaches had been rectified. If
employers failed to comply, orders could be sought from the Employment Relations Authority(Stone, 2014).

New Zealand fishing migrants
New Zealand public policy supports the use of FCVs to complement the local fishing fleet, provided
that “…FCVs do not provide a competitive advantage due to lower labour costs and foreign crewreceive protection from exploitation” (Stringer et al., 2011: 2). Stringer et al., (2011: 5) examinedwhich institutions were responsible for the working conditions of foreign fishing crew and found that
there was “…an institutional void pertaining to labour standards on board FCVs”, and distressing
levels of “…inhumane conditions and practices…” which had become institutionalised. Labour andother abuses were exposed in FCVs after the sinking of the South Korean Oyang 70 with loss of life
in 2010. Further, 32 Indonesian crew left the Oyang 75 in Lyttelton in 2011 claiming “…physical,
mental and psychological abuse as well as the non-payment of wages” (Stringer et al., 2011: 10).
This was not the first time such allegations had been made but limits of territory and inspectorate
capacity have restricted offshore monitoring.
Oyang 75 crew members immediately became illegal immigrants because their visas were as Koreancrew. They had no means of support and were to be forcibly repatriated by INZ without any
resolution of their pay dispute, let alone their other issues. The Canterbury Indonesian Society
became involved to help with translation as some members came from the island of Ambon, wheremost of the crew had been recruited. Because of the human rights abuses, local churches and the
local mosque also became gave support. These bodies organised a collection to help pay for thecrew’s accommodation and support while their case was contested. The Society was able to act as anintermediary and collection agent as a formally registered charity. It also acted as a formal link with5

Recent law changes have moved to fortnightly averaging to allow an employer to offset payment payable to a worker
for work in one week against payments due to the worker in the following week towards the minimum wage rate.
(MBIE, 2014). This change will affect many of the lowest paid workers in the country, and several industries with longhours such as dairying this are likely to become the norm (CTU, 2014).

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New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 39(1): 52-67
INZ and sought, successfully, to get the crew repatriated, without the usual penalties from the agents
who had recruited the crew (Kartikasari, 2013, personal communication). They were able to do thisthrough establishing links with the Indonesian organisation responsible for foreign workers, ATKIINDONESIA6.
Problems with FCVs are not restricted to vessels owned by the Oyang Corporation. The “cockroach
infested and leaky” Shin Ji, chartered by Tu’ere Fishing Ltd 9, had no bed linen, no hot water and thelife rafts were inaccessible due to mis-stowed fishing gear. Fishermen working aboard the vessel
went on strike for non-payment of wages dating back two years – the wages only amounting to $260
NZD a month (Harré, 2013: 2). The deaths, injuries, violence, abuse, stand over tactics, theft ofwages, and shocking conditions on these vessels over many years have all been documented – andare now exposed on the international stage.
Following the conclusion of an official domestic inquiry into the industry in March 2012, the report
made 15 recommendations for the government to consider (Ministry for Primary Industries, 2012).
In a surprising development in response to mounting pressure, the New Zealand Government (2012)
announced in May that a ban on foreign flagged fishing vessels in New Zealand waters would bephased in “to address labour, safety and fisheries practice concerns”. Foreign charter vessels would
be required to comply fully with New Zealand laws and regulations. The government offered a four
year transition period to soften the blow to the joint venture operators, who comprise 12 out of 27 of
the fishing industry companies. The Fisheries (Foreign Charter Vessels and Other Matters)
Amendment Bill was the final piece of legislation passed on the last sitting day of the House ofRepresentatives prior to Parliament being dissolved for the election in July 2014 (House ofRepresentatives, 2014).

The ‘success’ of RSE – How far can it go?
Given the examples of migrant exploitation documented thus far in primary industry employment, isthe RSE scheme a model that could be extended to other industries? The RSE policy was developed
to meet a crisis in the pip fruit industry when growers were failing to meet quality deadlines becauseof a lack of picking staff and inability to export their fruit in required condition. A continued dearthof ‘suitable workers’ (Franks, 2009) and the national workforce perceiving “low skill jobs as
undesirable” (Williams, 2009: 4) has minimised criticism that this work could be filled by locals(Cameron, 2011).
The RSE scheme has run since 2007, aiming to create a sustainable seasonal supply of experienced
labour for the horticulture and viticulture sectors (DoL, 2010). Bilateral facilitative arrangements
were negotiated between the DoL and the governments of five Pacific ‘kick-start countries’ (i.e.
those countries initially participating in the scheme) of Kiribati, Samoa, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu(Luthria, 2008; DoL, 2010). The scheme has continued to help with many of horticulture andviticulture’s seasonal labour problems and provide ‘wins’ for governments (New Zealand and islands– labour supplied, exports facilitated, remittances received), growers (vines pruned, fruit harvested
on time etc.) and for migrants who have earned far more than in the islands (sufficient to live, pay for
remittances to invest in education/houses and small businesses) (Immigration NZ, 2012-2013).
6

The Association of Indonesian Migrant Workers in Indonesia (ATKI-Indonesia) is a self-organisation ofIndonesian migrant workers, and advocates migrant workers policies and regulations in destination countries andIndonesia. ATKI also provides direct assistance, counselling, legal aid referral services for migrant abuse and trafficking
cases. Atki.indonesia@gmail.com

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New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 39(1): 52-67
An evaluation was conducted on the first two seasons (1 April 2007-31 March 2008, and 1 April
2008-31 March 2009) of the RSE, identifying worker support and dispute resolution as key issues
requiring attention. In addition, there was criticism by some employers and unions of the‘facilitative’ approach of the relevant regulator – the DoL (DoL, 2010). It was also found, in theevaluation, that protection processes were not easily accessible by workers (DoL, 2010). In addition,some Pacific Islander workers did not understand their contracts; exploitative working conditions
were also indicated, where workers recruited under the RSE scheme were regarded as highly
productive, partly because they were willing to work “in very hot, cold or windy conditions...longhours, weekends and night shifts” (DoL, 2010: 56). Presently, as an established guest worker
programme “the Scheme still has eight inspectors who are spending up to 70 per cent of their time…
investigating possible breaches of minimum wage and other employment laws” (Fenton, 2013).
Could such a model be developed for other export sectors? The same research team who
underpinned the RSE scheme have been helping dairy farming stakeholders with problems of fatigue
and stress, induced partly by the staffing concerns that have led to the use of migrants (Tipples et al.,2013). As a targeted scheme for staffing shortages that mitigates the problem of illegal workers, it
has some merit. However, temporary migration should not be permitted to “facilitate, institutionalize
and normalize a second-tier, low-wage/low-rights “guest worker” program” (Faraday, 2012: 3).
Further, the preference of migrant employment fails to address rural unemployment levels, nor doesit seek to improve the generally poor working conditions found within primary industry employment.
It can, therefore, be considered an imperfect response at best, and one that favours the primary sector
over other sectors also facing worker shortages.

Conclusion
Mitigating factors within the New Zealand employment environment have favoured migrant workers
in primary sector employment. Nonetheless, with increasing numbers of these workers filling
positions once considered ‘New Zealand’ jobs, it is timely to consider some concerns. What are theexisting protections for New Zealand’s vulnerable workers? Secondly, why are these mechanisms
ineffective? Finally, what can be done to improve the protection of vulnerable workers?

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New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 39(1): 68-78

Commentary
The New Zealand Public Sector: Moving Beyond New Public
Management?
NIGEL HAWORTH* and BRENDA PILOTT**
Introduction
New Zealand has, since the 1980s, been recognised internationally for its experimentation in what is
now widely known as “New Public Management” (NPM) (Boston, Martin, Pallot & Walsh, 1996;
Pollitt & Bouckaert, 2004). NPM seeks to bring market disciplines and, hence, greater levels of
accountability and efficiency into public sector activities. In this, it is consistent with the generalinternational trend in government economic thinking from the 1970s, sometimes described as Neoliberalism. NPM is, at once, a descriptive label, an ideology and a set of tools and practices at thedisposal of governments.
Our purpose here is not to discuss NPM theoretically. We wish, instead, to recognise its importancein New Zealand government thinking about the public sector in two periods: 1984-1999, and again
after 2008 (periods which encompass the reforming Labour governments of 1984-1990, the similarly
reforming conservative governments between 1990 and 1999, and the post 2008 conservative
governments). In the following discussion, we lay out briefly the rise and nature of NPM in New
Zealand, indicating some of the more recent debates about its nature and extent. In particular, weemphasise the extent to which market (private sector) disciplines brought into the public service haveaffected the employment relations (ER) and human resource management (HRM) practices in the
sector. We contrast this with comprehensive counter proposals developed over this period by the
Public Service Association (PSA), the primary public sector trade union, in response to the impact of
NPM in general, and specifically to its ER and HRM impacts.

BackgroundIn 1984, a newly-elected Labour government, assailed by international financial pressures,
surprisingly, adopted a strongly neo-liberal policy orientation. A progressive deregulation of much of
the economy followed, with the exception of the employment relations system, which was somewhat
amended, but not subjected, at that stage, to rigorous neo-liberal reform. A series of measures wereintroduced in the public sector, designed to implement NPM. These included the State-Owned
Enterprises Act (1986), the 1988 State Sector Act and the 1989 Public Finance Act. The firstimported private sector structures and disciplines into government-owned commercial activities; thesecond brought private sector structures and expectations into the core public sector; the third
imposed private sector financial disciplines on the core public sector, in the process introducing amodel whereby government “purchased outputs” from ministries and departments.

*

Prof. Nigel Haworth, Head of Department, Management and International Business. University of Auckland, New
Zealand**
Brenda Pilott, Former National Secretary, PSA.

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After re-election in 1987, and as a result of growing political discontent within the Labour tradition,
the Labour government showed less interest in the reform process generally, and in the reform of the
public sector. Nevertheless, there was no attempt to reverse the changes that had been introduced.
Rather, the reform process was put on hold.
In 1990, a National government came to power and restarted the reform process with great vigour.
New reform had two key dimensions. The first was a programme of cuts and reconfiguration in
welfare provision. The second was employment relations reform. The latter was embodied in the
Employment Contracts Act (ECA) 1991, as applicable to the public sector as it was to the private.
The purpose of the ECA was to raise the individual employment relationship above collective
relationships and, consequently, undermine collective bargaining and trade union voice inworkplaces. In the public sector, the ECA was to combine with other state sector reform measures inorder to mimic the power relations, behaviours and outcomes observed in the private sector.
A Labour-led government returned to power in 1999-2008, but under new constitutionalarrangements as a result on the introduction of a proportional representation system at national level.
On the one hand, post 1999 Labour-led governments funded better the core public service and, as weshall see, were committed to a partnership model with the PSA. On the other, their commitment to
NPM remains the subject of debate (see below).
Labour-led governments gave way to National-led governments in 2008, whereupon NPM gained
new life as government focused on reducing the size of the public sector. A policy of “doing more
for less”, implemented through upwards of 500 reviews since 2008, has seen employment levels inthe sector reduced, and a sustained anti-public service rhetoric used by ministers.

Three Moments in the NPM Debate in New Zealand
The nature and extent of the adoption of NPM in New Zealand is well captured in the comparison of
three commentaries. First, we have the view of a departmental CEO, actively engaged in theimplementation of NPM (Walker, 1996). This interpretation adopts the standard rationale for thereform process. Hence, argues the piece, the reforms were needed because of long-term
inefficiencies in the economy as a whole, and in the public sector in particular, and short-term,
because of the economic crisis facing the incoming government in 1984.
For Walker, the reforms were a success, in terms of setting in train a model of continuous
improvement in which there is no final, known goal. Success is understood in terms of three
qualities: the political will to drive the change process; the “broad community acceptance that change
was necessary” (Walker, 1996: 356); the reforms were driven by principles, thus, giving them bothan analytical grounding and a defence against attacks from the status ex ante. For now, we can accept
that there was political will (though it waxed and waned, particularly in the centre-left). The assertion
that the wider community supported the reforms is contentious (though, for example, some sectors of
the business community clearly favoured a smaller public sector). The third argument aboutprinciples is reducible to the ideological domination in the period of core tenets of the Washington
Consensus and its neo-liberal form.
Walker’s overall assessment is “overwhelmingly positive”. Things went particularly well in the corepublic service, in which departmental autonomy has “liberated” managers from central controls,
promoted innovative management, improved resource utilisation, sustained “good practice” in HRM,
and promoted “an entirely healthy focus on the quality and content of what departments produce
rather than on expenditure per se” (Walker, 1996: 363). Of course, there are rough edges, such as the70

New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 39(1): 68-78
loss of “horizontal interaction or cooperation” across departments, or the uneven responses ofministers to the new arrangements. However, the balance of judgement emphasises the positive.
A decade on, the impact of NPM was subject to re-appraisal. Chapman and Duncan (2007) suggest arebalancing of perspectives on NPM in New Zealand, in which the overwhelmingly positive view
taken by Walker and others is qualified by the suggestion of growing “misgivings” about its impact(see also, for example, Gregory, 2003; Whitcombe, 2008). To quote Chapman and Duncan (2007: 34)
None the less, substantial misgivings about the New Zealand model have since emerged, forexample concerns about… poor integration and strategic co-ordination of services ...
rigid performance measurement systems that imposed forms of centralized (and often
disempowering) control … a lack of commitment to long-term social outcomes as opposed toshort-term business goals… a concern that the purchasing-of-outputs model had overemphasized efficiency at the expense of ‘long term maintenance of capacity’ in publicorganizations … and a lack of managerial discipline among Crown entities.
They go on to note public dissatisfaction, particularly with the public health reforms of the 1990s,
and with accountabilities exposed in incidents such as the Cave Creek disaster.
Public dissatisfaction with NPM, argue Chapman and Duncan, grew in a broader context undergoingchange for four reasons – the introduction of proportional representation (a mixed member system –MMP), changes in the role of the State Services Commission (SSC), the impact of the 1996 Schickreport, and the coming-to-power of a Labour-led government in 1999. In relation to the change inelectoral system, the suggestion is that policy reform became slower because of the need to sustain
coalitions in power, in turn making it less easy to promote NPM. Given events after 2008 and theelection in that year of a National-led coalition, this argument, insofar as it suggests a permanent
limitation of NPM, is difficult to support. The second shift – in which the SSC, initially charged
under the 1998 State Sector Act with a fairly narrow role in terms of performance reviews, seniorappointments and personnel issues, gained a wider (in the sense of issues and organisational scope)and more strategic role – gave, argue Chapman and Duncan, more status to the SSC. This, in turn,
reduced relatively the status of Treasury (Ministry of Finance) and its generally effusive support for
NPM.
This shift should be understood in the context of the Schick Report. As Chapman and Duncan rightly
argue, Schick was expected by many to find little fault with the public sector reforms undertaken in
New Zealand. Surprisingly, he was critical of the reforms, pointing to inter alia the exaggeration of
the application of agency theory and the provider-purchaser split (leading to weaknesses in theability of departments to service government), the need for an improved whole-of-government
perspective, the need for a Senior Executive Service as a pool for senior talent, and less focus on
narrow “market-driven” criteria for output purchasing. Again, this commentary did not
fundamentally weaken NPM practice in New Zealand, but did play a role in a rebalancing of power
between Treasury and the SSC and in the manner by which non-financial measurements ofdepartmental performance gained higher status.
The incoming Labour-led government took up the Schick report and, as Chapman and Duncansuggest, distilled its approach into three priorities for change (a better-integrated, people-focuseddelivery; less fragmented and better aligned delivery; greater emphasis on people and culture in the
sector) and two avenues for change (legislative changes and a focus on improved sectoral
capability).The impact of this approach was, in Chapman and Duncan’s view, to modify or reverse
the NPM approach adopted in the 1990s on a gradual, pragmatic, piecemeal basis. The “New
Zealand model” of the 1980s and 1990s was no longer in place.
71New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 39(1): 68-78

By 2011, and three years into a new National-led government, Lodge and Gill (2011) take firm issue
with the idea of a shift away from NPM. They offer a technical assessment of the public sector’s
administrative doctrines, public service bargains (PSB – the conduct of relationships between the
public servants and the wider political system) and change in doctrines, as determined by the 2004
Crown Entities Act. They conclude that New Zealand offers little support for a “mega trend” from
NPM to a post-NPM environment. Moreover, changes in public sector management in New Zealandin the early 2000s were less of a shift away and more of a construction upon the existing NPM
framework. Instead, they point to diversity in the implementation of NPM, a trend that has grown in
the 2000s. Their suggestion is that NPM was never a homogenous phenomenon, and that lack ofhomogeneity has been exacerbated, but still within the broad rubric of NPM.
This, then, is the background against which we must view current PSA proposals for change in the
public sector. New Zealand grasped firmly the NPM message in the 1980s, and, notwithstanding, theviews of Chapman and Duncan might reasonably be understood in the terms suggested by Lodge andGill. Certainly, the post-2008 government’s focus on cost-cutting and restructuring in the public
sector carries many of the hallmarks of NPM.

The PSA – an agenda for change
Despite the sustained assault on the public service since the 1980s, the PSA has, when circumstances
allow, sought to respond on two fronts – one defensive, in an attempt to protect members andconditions in government departments and beyond; the other positive, in a sustained commitment toimproved public service based on decent work and good employment practices. The PSA’s
Partnership for Quality (PFQ) model was originally developed as an approach to National-led
governments in the 1990s. During the period of Labour-led governments in the 1999-2008 period,
PSA strategy in the core government sector focused on a “Partnership for Equality” approach, which,through three iterations, came to include government, the PSA and the SSC around the following key
elements:






Enhanced conditions negotiated for PSA members in recognition of their contribution
through the partnership approach
The public service employer-subsidised retirement savings scheme and its extension acrossthe state sector
Funding increases to improve staff capacity and capability
Regular meetings between the PSA, government and public service chief executives todiscuss key strategic issues in the public service
Information and consultation on new initiatives and policies

Simultaneously, the PSA undertook development work on improved workplace arrangements, under
the rubric of a Sustainable Work System (SWS) model. SWS was a comprehensive organisationalchange management / transformation agenda, which incorporated a number of key elements: Lean,
partnership, staff involvement and effective engagement, including in change management processes.
The ‘best practice’ approach was also a major aspect of the PSA SWS model. Note that Lean alone,or Lean Lite, the “watered down”, partial version of Lean, were not accepted by the PSA as asufficient condition for the creation of high-performing workplaces. Interventions had to be strongly
associated with a comprehensive SWS approach. More recently, the PSA has consolidated its
thinking around workplace change in Transforming the Workplace, to which we return below.

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New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 39(1): 68-78
The PSA SWS model is captured in the following diagram:

As might be expected, the PSA generally anticipate that a centre-left government will be more
attuned to partnership-style engagement with SWS and similar initiatives. However, it is also able tosee some possibility of progress under centre-right governments, as in the case of the 2011 Better
Public Services Report. Hence, whilst its contemporary thinking is orientated in part to the prospectof a change of government in the 2014 general election, it has also seen positive elements in reports
produced by the current centre-right government (such as the 2011 Better Public Services report see
below).
The PSA has recently developed a comprehensive framework for change in the core public sector(whilst recognising similar needs in, for example, health, local government and community services).
The twin key themes of the “agenda for change” are, first, state sector reform on a first principles
basis, and, second, the establishment of the state sector as “an exemplar of good employment andemployment relations practices”. The agenda marks the PSA as, in contemporary parlance, a“modern” union, that is, to use classical employment relations terms, a union prepared to adopt an
integrative (or positive sum) bargaining approach rather than a traditional distributional approach.
That said, it is also the case that the PSA understands the importance of, and is committed to,independent worker voice in the creation and management of constructive and mutually respectful
working relationships1. The PSA has arrived at its strategic vision for the state sector as a result ofrobust internal debate, in which the principles of engagement are subject to regular appraisal andcontestation. It is fair to describe the contemporary PSA view as mature, an effect of over 15 years ofdevelopment.
The current context, especially since the 2008 election, has added urgency to the PSA’s strategic
positioning. The incoming government adopted a “more for less” approach to the public sector,
arguing that the sector is inefficient, over-staffed and not focused sufficiently on delivery. The
intention or claim has been to maintain service provision whilst improving efficiency. The PSA has
identified over 500 discrete restructuring “events” since 2008, involving at least 5000 job losses.
“Creeping” restructuring has been accompanied by a rhetoric of criticism of public sector
1

At the time of writing (mid-2014), the prospect of major strike activity in the health sector, led by the PSA, indicates thewillingness of the PSA to act firmly as a trade union, representing members’ legitimate demands, when the need arises.

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New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 39(1): 68-78
performance, perhaps most starkly seen in the fraught attempts to restructure the Ministry of Foreign
Affairs and Trade (MFAT) from 2012. This wave of restructuring takes place against the longer term
shifts in circumstances in the public sector in which, for example, the impact of MMP has been tochange public servant behaviour. Palmer (2013) describes the erosion of the “free and frank advice”
practices of a previous age, and their replacement by “far too much second guessing by public
servants of the political incentives on Ministers – and too much pulling of punches in the provisionof advice” (ibid: 45). He also notes pointedly, first, the rise to the top of ministries of the
managerially-capable rather than the policy-savvy and, second, the threat of politicisation of the
public service.
Also, there are the current policy settings for the public service – captured in the government’s Better
Public Services strategy – which include emphasis on results rather than outputs, cross-departmental
cooperation, improved efficiency and capability, better advice and analysis, improved departmental
leadership and a new Performance Improvement Framework. Such expectations may not sit easily inan environment marked by instability and criticism.
In sum, the public service in New Zealand faces short term restructuring and job loss in a longer term
environment of change and uncertainty. It is in this challenging context in which the PSA seeks topromote its agenda for change.

Initiative One: State Sector Reform
The PSA argues that there is a need for a “first principles” restructuring of state sector management.
This is needed for both practical and philosophical reasons. Practically, the PSA, in line with othercontemporary reports on state sector performance, observes a state sector which is fragmented,
unable to solve intractable problems, slow to innovate, and performing poorly in terms of leadershipand response to change. In philosophical terms, the rationale for the 1980s reforms – neo-liberalism –is outmoded and out of step with the challenges facing the contemporary public sector.
There is evidence to support the practical concerns. The 2001 Review of the Centre and the 2011
Better Public Services make similar points. The PSA has argued that such failings are an effect of theframework imposed in the 1980s, a framework that is unable to provide adequate and effective
responses. The PSA notes calls that have been made (especially by Sir Geoffrey Palmer) for a Royal
Commission to investigate the challenges facing the state sector2. The implication to be drawn here isthat there is a groundswell of concern that state sector performance cannot improve under the
existing framework. Moreover, it is not a question of returning to some pre-existent model of state
sector arrangements but, instead, there is a need for an open-minded consideration of new structuraland legislative arrangements which, in turn, will deliver a state services system that is adaptable andresponsive. The PSA emphasises the need for new state sector legislation particularly if there is to be
improved cross-agency collaboration, improved leadership and, also improved accountabilities.
The proposed re-think of the framework under which the state sector operates includes a number ofrelated considerations. Improved accountabilities for chief executives and the state sector in relation
to the Treaty of Waitangi are needed. Staffing caps should be discontinued, and improved investmentin the public service is needed (to avoid problems such as, for example, those seen in Education

2

The Labour party has included a proposal for a Royal Commission on the public sector in its 2014 election manifesto.

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around Novopay, or those which have emerged in the Conservation Estate) 3. The current
government’s heralded but markedly underperforming privatisation campaign should be halted, asshould the untested and ideologically-driven experiments with public-private partnerships. The ethosof public service should return to a focus on delivery to the public, and not on a politicised delivery
to ministers. The PSA offers a possible but-still-to-be fully-scoped way forward to support a renewed
ethos of public service in the guise of Charter of State Servants’ Rights4 (a specific antidote to
managerialist codes of conduct introduced by the SSC). The purpose of the charter would be to
uphold the provision of free and frank advice, to establish the right of public servants to respect anddignity in work, and to recognise public servants’ rights to be active citizens in a democracy (within
the constraints imposed by a professional need to maintain political neutrality). A recent muchcriticised report on leaks from MFAT adds a particular piquancy to this last purpose5.
In sum, the PSA is recommending a significant re-casting of both the framework and expectations
that govern public servants’ activities and the organisations in which they work.

Initiative Two: The State as Exemplar Employer
If the PSA desires a comprehensive reform of the framework under which the state sector operates,
its expectations on the human capability and organisational performance fronts are no lessdemanding. It proposes a range of revised or new measures to allow the largest employer in New
Zealand to lead by example in the creation of a high-performance culture.
In law, state sector employers are required to be “good employers” and, broadly, this is the case.
More can be done on this front, argues the PSA, particularly in terms of accountabilities for, andmonitoring and reporting of, good employer and good faith behaviours.
Good employer behaviour is, suggests the PSA, compromised by a pervasive managerialism
throughout the public service. “Command and control” management styles, a “right to manage”
mentality, and a cult of (senior) leadership are rife across the sector. Lost in this package are thepositive workplace arrangements that promote improved organisational performance andproductivity, better workplace cultures, and high-trust relationships. The HRM approach adopted is
too often an apeing of the corporate sector, unsuited to the requirements and expectations of the
public service. Good employer behaviours in the state sector demand improved and changed
leadership performance and also a commitment to high-trust practices, supported by appropriate
training and development provision. In related recommendations, the PSA is promoting change
management practices in the public sector, which reduce or remove the contemporary focus on
redundancy and job loss, and replaces it with a focus on employment security, tied to retention
and/or redeployment of skills, and improved career structures. In turn, this leads to a desire to see
greater emphasis on proactive workplace learning in order to address concerns such as skill

3

Novopay is a controversial salary payment system for teachers in the public system. It has failed consistently and its
improvement has required major unanticipated expenditure, and the handing-over of the system from the private sector to
public sector management. In the case of the Conservation Estate, underfunding and poor management have been blamedfor a decline in conservation performance.
4

A title still in development.

5

The report relates to an investigation of leaks from MFAT in relation to its restructuring, and led to naming of senior
officials in a manner widely regarded as both improper and inaccurate.

75

New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 39(1): 68-78
shortages, improved career development, adequate capabilities and competencies, and organisational
resilience in HR.
High-trust arrangements require high-trust, productive and innovative workplaces. As noted above,
the PSA has been at the forefront of the high-performance debate in New Zealand for two decades,
and seeks to take this approach further in the state sector. However, they notably couch theirapproach to workplace reform in terms of a recognition that people want more value to be achieved
from constrained public spending. Hence, high performing workplaces provide two related sets ofadvantages – far better environments in which to work for public servants, and important
opportunities to promote productivity and innovation in a constrained financial environment. For
members, high-performing workplaces will offer substantive employee engagement and voice,higher levels of autonomy, improved staff retention and employment security and, overall, improved
workplace cultures. The PSA is firm that the union – autonomous, organised, progressive – is criticalto high performance success in the sector, and that many managers, currently not on board with thisidea, will have to understand this to be the case. The PSA also sees greater opportunity to bringgovernment and the PSA together to investigate innovation in the public sector.
The PSA also identifies a pressing need for a new bargaining framework in the state sector. A
particular target in the PSA’s sights is the fragmentation of bargaining and outcomes acrossgovernment agencies, and the effect of the enterprise bargaining model. The PSA recognises that thePartnerships for Quality agreements set in place between 1999 and 2008 failed to address thischallenge and now argues for the creation of MECAs (multi-employer collective agreements) as theway to achieve common terms and conditions. An added impact of cross-departmental outcomes
would be efficiencies gained in bargaining (for example, in relation to salary survey data). Finally,
the PSA recognises that the Council of Trade Unions (CTU) and the Labour Party are consideringmajor changes in the ER legislation, which, if implemented following a change in government,
would make industry-wide arrangements far easier to achieve.
One effect of new bargaining arrangements might be a mechanism to address increasingly
disadvantageous pay outcomes (relative to the private sector) and the difficulties associated withproblematic performance-based pay systems. Another pressing issue for the PSA is pay equity.
Noting that the public service gender pay gap is 14.2 per cent, and that some departments encompass
gaps of up to 40 per cent, the union argues for comprehensive measures in legislation to addressthese discrepancies.
Finally, the PSA is keen to see effective tripartite arrangements set in place to address health andsafety (H&S) issues in the sector, not only in terms of new national H&S arrangements, but also to
respond to particular issues that arise in the sector, such as stress deriving from restructuring,casualisation and uncertainty, the risk of violence from clients, and bullying.

Discussion
The PSA is clear that its agenda for change is unlikely to be achieved under centre-rightgovernments. Although not affiliated with any party or tradition, it is anticipated that a centre-leftgovernment would be more likely to respond favourably to the agenda. In other words, thepoliticisation of public sector policy remains deeply embedded in New Zealand as an effect of NPM
and its local history.
However, the “branding” of the agenda is important. The PSA has moved away from a simple
demand for better resources and more funding. It has, in many ways, turned that traditional argument76

New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 39(1): 68-78
on its head, downplaying considerably (but not totally) any expectation of increased funding. Rather,it has driven the agenda from the perspective of improved services and efficiency, arguing that its
prescriptions will not only drive improved performance but also create better working conditions formembers. This is a mature (and radical) argument for engagement and high performance, in which
the PSA, whilst protecting autonomy and voice, also claims (partial) ownership of the sector and its
workplaces, with all such ownership’s accountabilities and responsibilities. The traditional union call
– “it is the manager’s job to manage” – has been replaced by a call for joint regulation considerably
beyond narrowly-defined wages and conditions.
The maturity of this argument reflects the long experience and discussion in the PSA around highperformance and the impacts of NPM. It also reflects a confidence in the union, based in part on thatexperience, in part on size and growth, in part on membership mobilisation, and in part on its
leadership. Few unions in New Zealand could or would make the analytical leap from traditional“distributional arrangements” to such a mature “integrative” model.
The leap is not without questioning. The PSA has a strong, active membership, which subjects union
strategy to careful scrutiny. The “engagement” model must sustain membership support to prosper.
At the strategic level, the PSA leadership has consistently maintained the view that only a strong,
independent worker voice can become legitimately engaged in joint regulation, establishing a clear
bottom line for union involvement in reform of the sector. There is no sense in which the PSA is a
supplicant in the debates around public sector reform, and there remains a willingness to couple
engagement with traditional union action where and when needed.
The short-term future for the PSA’s strategic approach depends on election results in 2014. A leftleaning government will provide a fertile environment for change. A victory for the existing
government promises further restructuring in the “more for less” guise. However, the PSA is
unlikely to resile from its strategic approach in the near future, not only because of its commitment toreform, but also because of its recognition that reform is in the interests of members and nation.

References
Boston, J., Martin, J., Pallot, J., & Walsh, P. (1996). Public management: the New Zealand model.
Auckland: Oxford University Press.
Chapman, J., & Duncan, G. (2007). Is there now a new ‘New Zealand model’? Public Management
Review, 9(1): 1-25.
Gregory, R. (2003). All the King’s horses and all the King’s men: putting New Zealand’s public
sector back together again. International Public Management Review, 4(2): 41-58.
Lodge, M., & Gill, D. (2011). Toward a New Era of Administrative Reform? The Myth of Post‐NPM
in New Zealand. Governance, 24(1): 141-166.
New Zealand Government. (1996). The Spirit of Reform: Managing the New Zealand State Sector ina Time of Change. Wellington: State Services Commission (The Schick Report).
New Zealand Government. (2001). Review of the Centre. Wellington: State Services Commission.
New Zealand Government. (2011). Better Public Services. Wellington: State Services Commission.
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New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 39(1): 68-78

Palmer, M. (2013). Rebuilding a Quality Public Service in Rethinking the State Sector Act: Views of
the PSA and New Zealand Fabian Society’s 2013 Lecture Series. Wellington: New Zealand.
Pollitt, C., & Bouckaert, P. (2004). Public management reform: An international comparison.
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Walker, B. (1996). Reforming the public sector for leaner government and improved performance:
The New Zealand experience. Public Administration and Development, 16: 353-375.
Whitcombe, J. (2008). Policy, Service Delivery and Institutional Design: the Case of New Zealand’s
Social Sector Government Agencies, 1984-2007 (Unpublished PhD) Wellington: Victoria Universityof Wellington.

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New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 39(1): 79-86

Research Note: Conceptualising Adaptive Resilience using Grounded
Theory
VENKATARAMAN NILAKANT,* BERNARD WALKER,**HEUGTEN,*** ROSEMARY BAIRD**** and HERB DE VRIES*****

KATE

VAN

Abstract
We present the initial findings from a study of adaptive resilience of lifelines organisations providing
essential infrastructure services, in Christchurch, New Zealand following the earthquakes of 20102011. Qualitative empirical data was collected from 200 individuals in 11 organisations. Analysis
using a grounded theory method identified four major factors that aid organisational response,
recovery and renewal following major disruptive events. Our data suggest that quality of top andmiddle-level leadership, quality of external linkages, level of internal collaboration, ability to learn
from experience, and staff well-being and engagement influence adaptive resilience. Our data alsosuggest that adaptive resilience is a process or capacity, not an outcome and that it is contextual.
Post-disaster capacity/resources and post-disaster environment influence the nature of adaptive
resilience.

Introduction
This research note offers an overview of a significant New Zealand research project exploringorganisational resilience in the aftermath of the Canterbury earthquakes. The project commenced in2012 and finishes towards the end of 2015. As the project passes its midway point, we briefly shareand reflect upon some of the initial findings. Other, more detailed articles will subsequently provide
a more comprehensive account of the project’s activities and the specific outcomes.

Background
Most organisations are likely to encounter crises that have the potential to impair or even end theirfunctioning. The crises can include local incidents, or broader dynamics such as globalisation,
discontinuous shifts in technology or the increasing occurrence of natural and man-made disasters(Norris, Stevens, Pfefferbaum, Wyche, & Pfefferbaum, 2008). The concept of resilience offers an
explanation for the differing outcomes that result from these experiences, with some organisations
successfully addressing those crises and adapting to new situations, while others may falter or fail.
The growing interest in resilience and the need to identify ways to boost organisational resilience
reflects the frequency of organisational crises, with organisations increasingly forced to rapidly adapt
to changing, and often unpredictable situations.

*

Associate Prof., College of Business and Law, University of Canterbury, New Zealand
Senior Lecturer, College of Business and Law, University of Canterbury, New Zealand***
Associate Prof., College of Arts, University of Canterbury, New Zealand****Research Associate, College of Business and Law, University of Canterbury, New Zealand*****
Senior Lecturer, College of Business and Law, University of Canterbury, New Zealand**

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New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 39(1): 79-86
Resilience has been defined in a variety of ways (Norris et al., 2008; Zhou, Wang, Wan, & Jia,
2010). In the positive organisational scholarship literature, Vogus and Sutcliffe (2007) defineresilience “as the maintenance of positive adjustment under challenging conditions such that theorganization emerges from those conditions strengthened and more resourceful” (p. 3418). In theirdefinition, resilience not only helps the organisation to cope but it makes it better. In a similar vein,
Norris et al (2008: 130) define resilience as “a process linking a set of adaptive capacities to a
positive trajectory of functioning and adaptation after a disturbance.” While the notion of individual
resilience has gained prominence in addressing the coping capacities of individual persons, theemerging concept of organisational resilience represents a distinct, although related, construct which
has the potential to integrate research from a variety of organisational perspectives that have focusedon organisational crises, adaptation, learning and employee well-being and engagement in dynamic
and volatile environments.
Resilience can be viewed as consisting of two dimensions. Planned resilience or first-order capacity
involves the use of existing, predetermined planning and capabilities, as exemplified in business
continuity and risk management which are predominantly pre-disaster activities. In contrast, adaptive
or second-order resilience emerges during the post-disaster stages as organisations develop new
capabilities through dynamically responding to emergent situations that are outside of their plans(Lee, Vargo, & Seville, 2013).
In this note, we present the initial findings from a study of organisational resilience, specifically
adaptive resilience, of lifelines organisations in Christchurch, New Zealand. The city was hit by aseries of devastating earthquakes from September, 2010. The February 2011 event was the mostdevastating, causing 185 deaths and widespread infrastructure and property damage. By December
2012, more than 12,000 aftershocks were recorded. During this period following the disaster,organisations in the city had to effectively respond to the disaster, recover from its consequences andmanage renewal in the altered post-disaster context. In this study, we have defined organisational
resilience as the capacity or ability to respond effectively, recover quickly and achieve positive
renewal in the new environment. The research was guided by the two broad questions: (a) How did
the organisations in our study respond to the crises? How did they recover? How did they positively
adapt to the new environment? (b) What helped them in effective response, recovery and renewal?

Research Design and Methodology
There are relatively few studies that have examined how organisations perform in an actual disaster.
The phenomenon that we were dealing with was relatively unique and dynamic, with an extended
period of ongoing, significant seismic events. Therefore, we opted for an inductive qualitative study
using grounded theory procedures for data collection and analysis (Charmaz, 1990; Corbin &Strauss, 2008; Yin, 1984).
We drew on a pilot study of four large organisations in Christchurch impacted by the earthquakes,
conducted between October and December 2011. The four were a mix of commercial and noncommercial organisations (such as a public hospital). The pilot study provided a glimpse of some of
the categories that we wanted to explore in detail in a larger study.
Between October 2012 and May 2014, we collected data from 10 “lifeline” organisations, that is,organisations that provide essential infrastructure services to the community, such as water,
wastewater, transport, energy and telecommunications (Lifeline Utilities, 2014; New Zealand
Treasury, 2014). We also studied one further organisation that included a collective or alliance of80

New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 39(1): 79-86
other organisations. Since that organisation was of a different type from the others, we will not
discuss this here; it will be the subject of separate articles.
In each of the 10 organisations, we collected data from individual interviews with senior managers
who were involved in the response, recovery and renewal. In two organisations, data was alsocollected through focus group discussions. Across the 11 organisations, a total of 159 individuals
were interviewed and 41 individuals participated in the focus groups.

Findings
We categorised the phases of the disaster aftermath as immediate response, recovery and long-term
renewal. While each organisation faced its own separate challenges, certain issues were common
across the 10 organisations. The dominant themes throughout the phases of the disaster included; (a)employee needs, well-being and engagement; (b) collaboration; (c) leadership;and (d)organisational learning.
Our data suggest, firstly, that understanding the trajectory of employee needs in the aftermath of adisaster is critical to effective response and recovery. During the response and recovery stages,
primary tangible needs were easy to identify and address, however, other employee needs wereunarticulated and only emerged later (Nilakant, Walker, Rochford, & van Heugten, 2013). The more
resilient organisations were sensitive to the full, evolving range of employee needs. Middle managers
played a key role in identifying and responding to employee needs. When those managers lacked
empathy and emotional intelligence, however, this adversely affected staff perceptions of theorganisation, and engagement declined.
Communication was a critical part of this process of relating with employees. Ongoing
communication, including active listening in order to monitor changing needs, boosted organisational
resilience. The need to manage employee workload and foster employee well-being was similarly
evident. The organisations studied were infrastructure and lifelines organisations, where people
worked long hours and risked fatigue to assist their community. Organisations learned to provide
flexibility to assist staff in dealing with personal issues, and often developed more comprehensive
personal well-being programmes. Customised human resource practices were more effective than a
one-size-fits-all approach.
Collaboration proved to be a second vital element of resilience. In a post-disaster situation, an
organisation is forced to respond to a new context, often with only limited experience and resources.
Resilience was boosted when organisations were able to make internal changes, such as breaking
down organisational silos in order to draw upon the combined resources and synergies of different
sections. Similarly, when organisations were able to use their established networks to link andcollaborate with others, this expanded their resources, their ability to learn, and their capacity torespond to the situation.
The role of the local leadership was a third crucial feature of resilience. The local leaders whoachieved a strong sense of engagement and respect among their staff were characterised by features
such as being empathetic, self-aware as well as valuing people and prioritising them over profits.
Staff responded positively to leaders who were visible, honest, caring, and authentic in theircommunication. These leaders expressed genuine appreciation of staff efforts, and prioritised boththeir own well-being and that of their staff. Effective local leaders also empowered staff at lower
levels, and were sensitive to the evolving context.
81New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 39(1): 79-86

Several of these more effective leaders mentioned their own growth and learning from the disasterrelated experiences, describing, for example, how they became less judgemental and more
understanding. Related to this, the leaders did not get caught in the immediate crises but thought
about long term issues early on, and tended to consciously balance risk with opportunity. Overall,they possessed what we termed “‘situational awareness”; this included clarity of direction and goals,
active networking, sharing and collaboration, readiness to try new approaches, awareness of staff
well-being, and appropriate communication.
Learning emerged as a fourth essential feature. We observed that organisations generally responded
very well to the immediate crisis. In the initial response phase, they moved out from their standard
routines and mind-sets to focus directly on the pressing, and very evident issues associated with thedisaster. Typically, they learned how to respond to a disaster, they exhibited greater-than-ordinary
collaboration, and they paid attention to staff well-being. For some organisations, their post-disasterlearning did “spill over” to create new, enhanced ways of functioning that persisted long-term, andthis learning also spread to other parts of the organisation. Those organisations developed processes
and procedures to systematically learn from their experiences. However, in other areas, the initial
adaptation and altered approaches did not endure. While the earthquakes resulted in huge
opportunities for some organisations, they did not always become better at reflecting, learning andadapting long-term.

Discussion
For this study, we operationalised adaptive resilience as the ability to respond effectively, recoverquickly, and successfully renew in the face of adverse events.
Crises such as major disasters alter an organisation’s landscape. Our research has identified four
categories that seem central to effective response, recovery and renewal. These are staff well-being
and engagement, collaboration, leadership, and learning.
Staff engagement was a major driver for adaptive resilience. While the disaster could provoke an
initial short period of heroism and heightened engagement, this could erode quickly unless leaders
put specific initiatives in place to sustain well-being and engagement. Staff well-being andengagement, while conceptually distinct, are practically related as part of a broader phenomenon thatinvolves well-being as an antecedent to engagement (Macy & Schneider, 2008). In organisations,where staff felt cared for, empowered, and valued, staff engagement tended to be high. Work-lifebalance and the acknowledgement of family ties tended to enhance a sense of well-being. The
emotional literacy of middle management played a key role in sustaining engagement.
Leadership emerged as a central feature, with empathetic leadership particularly vital in the response
and recovery phases. The leaders who fostered resilience exhibited a range of features thatdifferentiated them from less effective leaders. They could articulate values and behaviours that were
corroborated by other organisational members as central elements of resilience, such as open andfrequent communication with staff; placing a high value on staff (and family) well-being;
empowering their staff. These leaders were open to learning and mindful of the future and, mostimportantly, they created a caring culture, a learning culture and a collaborative culture – aspects that
promoted better response, faster recovery and positive renewal.

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New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 39(1): 79-86
While leadership and staff engagement played a primary role in adaptive resilience, collaborationand learning were catalysts that promoted that ongoing resilience, particularly in the recovery andrenewal stages. Organisations that were externally well-networked could draw upon resources andsupport in the response, recovery and renewal stages. Rapid adaptation in a dynamic environment
requires quick decision making and flexibility in operations. Internally, organisations that had built
up entrenched, separated silos found it harder to respond quickly. Teamwork inside the organisation
also promoted adaptive resilience by ensuring quicker decision making and faster responses.
In a dynamic environment, organisational adaptation is contingent on continuous learning.
Organisations need to establish a culture of openness, teamwork and shared vision to promotelearning (Sinkula, 1994; Sinkula, Baker, & Noordewier, 1997). This aspect has tended to receive lessattention in most organisations. Organisations typically lacked a systematic approach toorganisational learning and there was little dissemination of new insights.
Relating this set of factors to the overall concept of organisational resilience shows the factors
function in differing ways. Leadership and staff engagement can be viewed as creating adaptive
resilience whereas collaboration and learning are needed to sustain it. Figure 1 below shows theframework for adaptive resilience that emerged from this study.

Figure 1: Framework for Adaptive Resilience83New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 39(1): 79-86

Our findings suggest that adaptive resilience is also influenced by the context. In a large scale crisis
such as a disaster, some organisations may be impacted severely while others experience little
damage. If we conceptualise an organisation’s landscape as its markets or resource streams, theorganisational landscapes can vary significantly in a disaster. Two aspects of an organisation’s
landscape significantly influence its adaptation: (a) the availability of resources, and (b) the
dynamism of its environment (markets/suppliers/resource streams). An organisation’s resources, bothtangible and intangible, may remain intact after a disaster or these may be significantly eroded.
Similarly, the post-disaster environment may be similar to the pre-disaster environment or it may besignificantly different. A different environment may be what we term “positive” or “negative”. A
positive environment will offer opportunities for growth in terms of an expanded market or demand,
whereas a negative environment will be more challenging with a decline in demand. These twodimensions, resource availability and environmental dynamism can be combined to produce four
different scenarios, as shown in Figure 2 below.

Post-disturbance Market/Environment
Similar

Adequate

Different

Resilience is aboutsustaining performance

Resilience is about
leveraging strengths

Resilience is aboutacquiring resources

Resilience is about
exploring newopportunities

Post-disturbanceOrganisational
Resources
Inadequate

Figure 2: Contextualising Adaptive Resilience
The four scenarios require an emphasis on differing factors. If an organisation’s post-disasterenvironment is similar to its pre-disaster environment, and its resources, both tangible and intangible,
are largely intact (top left quadrant), then adaptive resilience is centred on dealing with the disruption
and sustaining performance. In this situation, the two factors of leadership and staff engagement will
be central to quick recovery.
If an organisation’s post-disaster environment is similar to its pre-disaster environment, but resources
are significantly eroded (lower left), then adaptive resilience focuses on rapidly mobilising resources.
Collaboration becomes a central element, along with leadership and staff engagement.
If an organisation’s post-disaster environment is different from its pre-disaster environment, and its
resources, both tangible and intangible, are largely intact (top right), then adaptive resilience is allabout leveraging its existing strengths in the new environment. In this situation it is learning, along84

New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 39(1): 79-86
with leadership, and staff engagement that are likely to be the key to effective recovery. This is, ofcourse, contingent on the post-disaster environment having enough resource to support the recovery.
If an organisation’s post-disaster environment is different from its pre-disaster environment, and its
resources, both tangible and intangible, are eroded (lower right), then adaptive resilience primarily
involves mobilising resources and exploring new opportunities. Here, the four factors – leadership,
staff engagement, collaboration and learning – are all central to recovery and renewal.

Conclusion
Recovery and renewal require both tangible resources, such as physical assets and money, along withintangible assets like human capital, knowledge and leadership. The most significant contribution of
our study is to conceptualise adaptive resilience as a complex dynamic that is constituted by aconstellation of tangible and intangible resources, and then identify its core components using agrounded theory method. The quality of top and middle-level leadership, together with the level ofstaff engagement, determine an organisation’s adaptive resilience. However, if its constituent
resources are neglected and eroded rather than fostered and sustained, adaptive resilience will tend todiminish over a period of time. To counter this, the quality of an organisation’s internal and external
collaboration, together with a learning orientation, can promote and sustain its adaptive resilience.

References
Charmaz, K. (1990). ‘Discovering’ chronic illness: Using grounded theory. Social Science &Medicine, 30(11): 1161-1172. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0277-9536(90)90256-R
Corbin, J., & Strauss, A. (Eds.). (2008). Basics of Qualitative Research: Techniques and Proceduresfor Developing Grounded Theory. Los Angeles: Sage.
Lee, A. V., Vargo, J., & Seville, E. (2013). Developing a Tool to Measure and Compare
Organizations’ Resilience. Natural Hazards Review, 14(1): 29-41.
Lifeline Utilities. (2014). Ministry of Civil Defence and Emergency Management Retrieved fromhttp://www.civildefence.govt.nz/cdem-sector/cdem-framework/guidelines/lifeline-utilities-and-civildefence-emergency-management-groups
Macy, W. H., & Schneider, B. (2008). The meaning of employee engagement. Industrial andOrganizational Psychology, 1(1):3-30.
New Zealand Treasury. (2014). Forging a Common understanding for Critical Infrastructure:
Shared Narrative. Retrieved from http://www.infrastructure.govt.nz/publications/critical5/crit5narrative-v2.pdf
Nilakant, V., Walker, B., Rochford, K., & van Heugten, K. (2013). Leading in a Post-disaster
Setting: A Guide for Human Resource Practitioners. New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations,38(1): 1-14.

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New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 39(1): 79-86
Norris, F.H., Stevens, S.P., Pfefferbaum, B., Wyche, K.F., & Pfefferbaum, R.L. (2008). Community
resilience as a metaphor, theory, set of capacities, and strategy for disaster readiness. American
Journal of Community Psychology, 41: 127-150.
Sinkula, J. M. (1994). Market Information Processing and Organizational Learning. Journal ofMarketing, 58(1): 35-45.
Sinkula, J. M., Baker, W. E., & Noordewier, T. (1997). A framework for market-basedorganizational learning: Linking values, knowledge, and behavior. Journal of the Academy ofMarketing Science, 25(4): 305-318.
Vogus, T.J., & Sutcliffe, K.M. (2007, October 7-10 Oct). Organizational resilience: Towards atheory and research agenda. Paper presented at the IEEE International Conference on Systems, Man
and Cybernetics, 2007. ISIC.
Yin, R. (1984). Case Study Research: Design and Methods. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.
Zhou, H., Wang, J.A., Wan, J., & Jia, H. (2010). Resilience to natural hazards: a geographic
perspective. Natural Hazards Review, 53: 21-41.

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New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 39(1): 87-91

Eulogy for Rt Hon Sir Owen Woodhouse
SIR GEOFFREY PALMER*
Capturing the essence of Owen Woodhouse makes demands. He was a complex, multi-facetedhuman being, blessed both with penetrating insight and human empathy. His compassion forpeople was perhaps his most salient characteristic. The number and range of his friends andacquaintances both in New Zealand and overseas was astonishing.
Owen had the gift of friendship. He inspired enormous loyalty and affection among those withwhom he interacted and worked. He laboured in some tough situations. He was a leader. He had
the capacity to weld a disparate group into a team and produce high quality outcomes. Everyone
wanted to help him. He also knew how to run a social occasion and was a great host, if a trifle
heavy handed with the whisky.
Owen had a warm-hearted social vision. He was a visionary with judgment and wisdom. He
believed those in distress should be helped and the well-being of each one should be of concern
to all. He looked into the future and tried to see how it would be. These qualities were reflected
not only in his court judgments but also in the reports he wrote both in New Zealand andAustralia.
In all of this, he carried his message through a unique prose style. Always spare, his prose had alimpid and crystalline quality to it. It was the result of painstaking drafting and redrafting. The
Woodhouse Report in Australia went through nine drafts. He wrote these reports himself. They
were powerful, clear, elegant and persuasive. From Owen I learned it was fine to start a sentencewith “and.” He was always critical of lawyers with a turgid style.
Owen Woodhouse was devoted to his family. He and Peggy were such a great team and theynurtured a family of six wonderful people – Roger who predeceased Owen but not Peggy, thenSusan, Peter, John, Tim and Margaret. Those five are all here today with their families. When Peg
died in 2000 Owen was sad beyond consolation.
They married in Napier in 1940, seven years after Owen had set his cap at Margaret Thorp, when
he was not yet 17 years of age, a law clerk in Napier earning ten shillings a week, having left
school early during the depression. She invited him to tennis at her home and that was, as theysay, the ball game. In his privately circulated “A Personal Affair” he says “And at an early age I
had my eye on the girl next door. Our marriage has been my life.” Notice that sentence begins
with “and.” He spent the years from 1935 until 1939 as a full time but underpaid law clerk in
Auckland for several law firms studying part time for a law degree at the University of
Auckland, from which he graduated in 1940. He was for a period law clerk to Alfred North.
He also found the time to edit the University newspaper “Craccum.”*Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey Palmer QC. Harbour Chambers, Wellington.

87New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 39(1): 87-91
Apart from his family, four primary forces shaped Owen Woodhouse’s beliefs and values –Napier, the 1931 earthquake there, the great depression and Second World War.


Napier, where he was born in 1916, was a tolerant and happy community. There he wasbrought up, there all the Woodhouse children were born, there he practised law
The Earthquake of 1931 that thrust the land mass up by nine feet visited terrible suffering
upon Napier, with 256 deaths and many injuries. Owen was then at Napier Boys’ HighSchool and was outside when the earthquake struck since it was the beginning of cadet
week. He saw directly the physical ruin and human desolation that event caused in the
town.



The depression that he lived through and from which he directly suffered made its impact
on his outlook – the retrenchment, the unemployment, the poverty, the hunger, the soup
kitchens and the dislocation of people’s lives.

The ranks of the Second World War veterans like Owen, who left such a heavy imprint upon
New Zealand life, are thinning now. Their values, their courage and their sacrifice were real.
Owen joined the territorial artillery and was called up in 1940. He decided it was better to join
the Navy and be trained in England. At the end of 1941, he was accepted and left New Zealand forEngland on the “Dominion Monarch” in January 1942. He did not tell the authorities he sufferedfrom asthma and was embarrassed when he had an attack in England. He was lucky not to be sent
home. The poet Denis Glover was one of his naval friends of whom Owen wrote he had “Music in
his soul.” Tough naval training all over the United Kingdom followed where he enjoyedfascinating experiences, and met many people. He passed the tests to become an officer. He cabled
Peg back in New Zealand “With delicate grace have donned gold lace, No arrogant louse, yourloving Woodhouse.”
He always had the purpose of serving in motor torpedo boats and he resolutely secured his wish.
The MTBs (motor torpedo boats) of the Coastal Forces were intended for offensive operations bynight. They were of plywood construction, 70 feet long, powered enormous marine engines.
From April 1943, Owen took part in many patrols from various bases in the Mediterranean, theAegean and the Adriatic. In the nature of this type of warfare, the engagements were closerequiring much courage and skill. He saw a lot of action. After Sicily fell his flotilla went up thecoast of Italy, a country that he came to know well and love
In November 1943, Owen was appointed the Coastal Forces Liaison Officer to work ashore with
Tito’s partisans at their headquarters on the island of Hvar. This was a position of unusual
responsibility and danger involving sensitive intelligence issues, strategy, negotiations andlengthy reports. He was active along the Dalmatian coast. He was obliged to attend many
meetings all over the theatre of war. He thrived as an Intelligence Officer being blessed with bothtact and insight.
In August 1944, Owen was given command of MTB 85. His boat broke down in an operation
88New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 39(1): 87-91
resulting in considerable danger but he was given a new one, MTB410. It was in this vessel inthe closing stages of the war in April 1945 that he won the Distinguished Service Cross for an
operation in the Gulf of Venice in which the flotilla sank five ships out of eight. His MTB sanktwo of them and his boat came under heavy fire for 12 minutes. Owen was responsible forthe sinking of enemy shipping and loss of life. He did his duty with professional detachment.
He told me, however, the last time I saw him in February of this year how he was having
dreams about the fate of the German sailors who had perished as a result of his activities andwhat terrible toll it must have taken on their families. That compassion was typical of him.
When the war in Europe concluded, Owen came under heavy pressure to accept an appointment
as assistant to the naval attaché in the newly opened British Embassy in Belgrade, where heremained six months. He was promoted to Lieutenant Commander. In the war, he progressed
through the ranks of bombardier, seaman, able seaman, sub-lieutenant, lieutenant and finally
Lieutenant Commander, a testament to the quality of the man.
The intensity and breadth of his war experiences taught Owen Woodhouse a great deal. It taught
him how to operate and what an operator he was. He had a tremendous sense of strategy and wasa master of clever tactics. Furthermore, he was remorselessly determined and could not easily beconvinced to change his stance. Behind his humane purposes and positive outlook, there wasreal grit and steel. These qualities were forged in the war.
Back in Napier New Zealand, aged 29, he resumed his legal career and was quickly appearing inmajor cases. In 1953, he was appointed Crown Prosecutor.
At the early age of 44, he was appointed a Supreme Court judge, now the High Court, in 1961. Heserved as a judge until 1986 becoming a judge of the Court of Appeal in 1973 and became thePresident of that Court in 1981. As a lawyer and as a judge, he was of the highest quality. The
depth of his life experiences was reflected in the insights contained in his judgments. He wassomething of a lateral thinker and not afraid to strike out in new directions. For him, the law was
not an end in itself. The pursuit of certainty was not always the pursuit of justice. He thought thelaw had to move on. That was part of the judicial function.
Owen was appointed counsel assisting a Commission of Inquiry into fluoridation of the public
water supply that reported in 1957. The work required the sifting and evaluation of complex
scientific information. He wrote the entire report and it brought him to the attention of politicians
and administrators in Wellington.
In 1967, he was asked to chair the Royal Com mission into Personal Injury in New Zealand.
He wrote every word of that report too. Appointed in September 1966, the report wascomplete by December 1967. It precipitated a legal revolution and made Owen Woodhouse afigure of international significance. I met him first when I was a student at the University of
Chicago Law School and he visited with the Royal Commission. I drove him back to the
Drake Hotel along Lakeshore Drive from the South side in an uninsured beat up 1955
Chevrolet.
His report swept away the common law action for damages and provided in substitution89New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 39(1): 87-91
earnings related compensation for all, 24 hours of the day. There was no place for the oldjury trials, nor the common law itself. Workers compensation was abolished. It was all to bedone with no further money than the old compulsory insurances provided. The report causeda deal of fluttering in the legal and political dovecotes. It needed to be studied, a White Paper
was to be written; I was its main author, selected and insinuated into the system by Owen
Woodhouse.
After delays, hesitations and changes, the scheme was enacted but not as it had been
recommended. ACC in New Zealand would have worked better if his report had been followed inevery respect. The experience with the scheme has not matched the vision of the original
blueprint. New Zealand never received what was envisaged by Owen: a “unified andcomprehensive scheme of accident prevention, rehabilitation and compensation.” Owen was
publicly critical of unwise later decisions that befell the scheme
One person who noticed the Woodhouse Report in New Zealand was Gough Whitlam thenLeader of the Opposition in Australia. He visited Owen in Auckland to talk about it. A lawyer
himself, Whitlam was attracted to the reform. When he became Prime Minister of Australia in
1972, one of the first things he did was to ask the New Zealand government to lend Owen to headup an Australian inquiry. The government agreed, a step that did much for trans-Tasman
relations. Owen rang me when I was teaching at the University of Virginia and said “Palmer,
you have to come to Australia” and I became Principal Assistant to the Committee of Inquiry.
It never occurred to me to refuse.
The landscape in Australia was very different from New Zealand and the way of the reformer
much harder. We had a tough time, but it was the most exciting adventure I ever had. Here is
Owen’s crisp summary of the fundamental principle in the Australian report:“There is the initial principle of community responsibility. For three main reasons the community
must accept the obligations that are clearly owed to every person who has been struck down bysickness or by injury. First there are the civilised reasons of humanity. Next, there are theeconomic reasons of self-interest. If the well-being of the workforce is neglected, the economy
soon will suffer and society itself thus has much to lose. Finally, there is the plain fact that rights
universally enjoyed must be accompanied by obligations universally accepted. The scheme
proposed is a national scheme. It involves national responsibility. It must be organised as a
responsibility of the State.”
Sadly, when the Bill was in the Senate, Sir John Kerr, who, when he was Chief Justice of New
South Wales, had made submission to the inquiry favouring the end of the common law
remedy, dismissed Whitlam from office. The scheme perished with him. Owen led theAustralian inquiry with determination and vigour. One example will suffice – the inquiry waswithin the jurisdiction of the Attorney-General, Lionel Murphy. He was not enamoured of the
Woodhouse ideas. He clamped a restriction on the inquiry that no movements interstate were
to be undertaken without his express approval. Owen spent his own money and flew toCanberra to see the Prime Minister. By nightfall, the inquiry was no longer within Senator
Murphy’s power.

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The third Woodhouse Report came after Owen was appointed President of the Law
Commission in 1986. The new Commission was asked to review the Accident Compensation
Act 1982 and one of its recommendations was that sickness should be covered by the schemeas soon as possible. I took up that opportunity. We tried to get a combined scheme together
after I became Prime Minister and a Bill was introduced in 1990. The time will come for thatcoverage.
Owen did much work on the Law Commission Act 1985, while it was being designed and hebecame Commission’s first President at the age of 71. He suggested that each Law
Commission Report should be accompanied by a draft Bill and that be given an automatic
first reading by law. I could not get it through Cabinet but it should be done. Owen set up the
Law Commission when the statute was passed and kept a strong and imaginative arm on thetiller navigating the directions it took. Ken Keith, who is here today, was his Deputy President.
The Commission under Owen’s leadership made many useful contributions to law reform in New
Zealand – the structure of the courts, wholesale reform of company law, accident compensation, a
Personal Property Securities Act, a new Act on the interpretation of statutes, work on the statuteof limitations and a valuable report on Imperial Statutes in force in New Zealand. A start was also
made on the massive evidence project. During this period, he was also a member of theinternational arbitral tribunal in Greenpeace’s claim against France over the Rainbow Warrior
bombing.
Mention should be made of Owen’s constitutional views. His judgment as President of the
Court of Appeal in striking down a set of regulations in 1982 was bold. His 1979 JC
Beaglehole Memorial lecture called for a halt to expanding executive power, likening thesituation in New Zealand to that enjoyed by the Stuart Kings. He called for a written
Constitution supported by a Bill of Rights. We are still waiting for the real thing.
Owen Woodhouse rendered the State much distinguished service. We shall not see his like again.
But his legacy will live long in the life of New Zealand and the culture of its law. He was awonderful mentor to many.
We celebrate today what was not merely a good life, it was a great one.
30 April 2014.

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Sir Owen Woodhouse
ROSS WILSON*
The great liberal jurist and reformer, Sir Owen Woodhouse, died in Auckland on the 15th
April at the age of 97. I last visited Sir Owen late last year not long after he had fallen andbroken his femur. He recounted how the ambulance attendant, concerned to ensure he wasaware of assistance available, had asked him if he “knew about ACC”? With his usual quick
humour Sir Owen responded “I invented it”. The attendant took some convincing but, after aquick social history lesson, left with Sir Owen’s autograph. This anecdote is a reminder thatmany New Zealanders are not aware of his role in the radical reform which resulted in theestablishment of our accident compensation scheme, and which we now take for granted as a
key public institution.
Sir Owen chaired the Royal Commission of Inquiry for Personal Injury in New Zealand from1966 to 1967 which, in what became known as the Woodhouse Report, recommended theabolition of the right to sue in the courts and the establishment of a national no fault
compensation scheme. This was a radical move, described by the American Journal ofComparative Law as “an unparalleled event in our cultural history, the first casualty among
the core legal institutions of the civilised world”. The surrender of the right to sue, in
exchange for entitlements under ACC, has been described as a “social contract”. Sir Owen’sview was that the common law negligence action was a form of lottery and that a national nofault scheme would enable seriously injured people, without proof of fault against someother person, to be provided with compensation approaching common law damages. Neither
major political party has ever challenged the validity of the Woodhouse founding principles
of Community Responsibility, Comprehensive Entitlement, Complete Rehabilitation, Real
Compensation and Administrative Efficiency.
The foresight of Sir Owen and his fellow commissioners is also reflected in other lesser
known recommendations in their report which included making the wearing of seat belts
compulsory and requiring farm tractors to be fitted with safety frames. More broadly, theyrejected experience rating of employer levies (on the basis that there was no international
evidence that they had any significant positive effect on safety) in favour of the Swedish
approach of active co-operation between management and workers, and between businessand unions. This approach has been adopted in law since 2003 with ACC funding ofworkplace Health and Safety Representatives, and is now being strengthened in the Healthand Safety Reform Bill following the strong endorsement of tripartism and worker
participation in workplace health and safety by the Independent Task Force which arose outof the Pike River Disaster.
It was disappointing that the 40th anniversary of ACCs inception passed on the 1st April 2014
without any official acknowledgement of its founder. Working as a lawyer representing
injured workers under the old system, I am very conscious of the huge benefit which ACC*

Ross Wilson is a former lawyer and President of the Council of Trade Unions. He was Deputy
Chairman of ACC 1986-1991 and Chairman 2007-2009. He is currently the Deputy Chairman ofWorksafe New Zealand.

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has provided to the millions of New Zealanders who have suffered accidental injury in the 40
years since the scheme came into effect, and I am sure that gratitude would be shared byother New Zealanders.
Sir Owen was always adamant that injured workers, and the nation would have been better
served had his recommendations been implemented in full. I was surprised in 1980, themorning after I had been reported in the Wellington “Evening Post” bemoaning theinadequacy of ACC lump sum compensation for seriously disabled railway workers I
represented, to receive a call from the Court of Appeal. It was Justice Woodhouse with agentle rebuke for supporting lump sum compensation and providing my first lesson on thebenefits for workers of delivering compensation for non-economic losses through a weekly
pension assessed on loss of earning capacity. He remained willing, throughout his life, tojoin conferences and meetings on ACC issues and always captivated the audience with his
eloquence, charm and humour.
ACC has not yet quite achieved the potential which Sir Owen envisaged, but it has survived apolitical era when “community responsibility” seemed like a vanishing value. It remains
admired around the world as the ideal which many other countries aspired to, but which
vested political interests denied them. Many may not know that, at the request of the Whitlam
Government, Sir Owen developed a similar scheme for Australia which would have been
implemented had it not been for the dismissal of that government in the constitutional crisisof 1975.
Sir Owen’s view of accidents as complex events may have been hard to grasp 45 years ago
but is certainly more readily understood today in a world where there is daily debate about
the disabling effects of poor work organisation, and the health effects of toxic exposures, bothin the workplace and the general environment. His recommendation was that the highest
priority be given to the promotion of safety. He returned to this theme as President of the Law
Commission in its 1988 report which, most notably, promoted a comprehensive disability
scheme for the victims of disabling disease as well as accidents.
Sir Owen was a liberal judge with a strong social conscience who was influenced by his
personal experience of major events of his era, such as the Napier Earthquake, the Great
Depression and the Second World War. He served in the Royal Navy and was awarded aDistinguished Service Cross for naval operations. He was a progressive and compassionate
judge and, as the Law Society has noted in its tribute, was the most liberal judge of the Courtof Appeal to ever become its President.
The influence of his beloved wife, Peggy, was frequently mentioned with gratitude. They met
when he was 16, and Sir Owen noted in his memoir that “Our marriage has been my life”. It
was wonderful to see his large extended family at All Saints Cathedral on the 30 th April
sharing their recollections, and celebrating the life of their remarkable father, grandfather andgreat-grandfather, a truly great New Zealander.

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