Harawira Hone: Employment Relations (Breaks and Infant Feeding) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
Harawira Hone: Employment Relations (Breaks and Infant Feeding) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:649;Page:17861] 
HONE HARAWIRA (Maori Party—Te Tai Tokerau) 
: 
 Tena koe Madam Assistant Speaker. Kia ora tatou e te Whare. Exactly 100 years ago miners at Blackball on the West Coast were sacked for daring to ask for 30 minutes for a meal break instead of the 15 minutes their bosses said they could have. And over the last century those mining heroes have been joined by other advocates in the fight for workers’ rights. There have been many struggles to achieve comprehensive rights for workers—annual and public holidays sick leave bereavement leave penalty payments overtime payments and even the supply of milk sugar and tea. In fact it could be thought that every possible right a worker might want would already be accepted practice in today’s modern world. 
So it came as a bit of a shock to hear that earlier this year up north Filipino nurses were being treated like slaves because of debts they were supposed to owe to their recruitment agencies which forced them to work in desperate conditions and bonded them for 3 years at low wages. Or there was the situation that John Minto told me about after he was rung up by a woman working in the departure lounge at Auckland International Airport. She started work every day at 4 30 a.m. and did not get a meal break until just before midday. Naturally worker turnover is high there but instead of trying to find out why that is Work and Income just keeps sending more workers into the fray—mostly women and mainly Maori Pacific or other recently arrived ethnic minorities. I thought we had got rid of these kinds of conditions years ago but apparently not. 
It is quite frankly bloody outrageous that in 2008 we even have to have a bill to make employers give workers paid rest breaks and unpaid meal breaks. Bizarre as it may seem the need for protecting workers’ rights is as relevant today as it was 100 years ago. In fact less than 24 hours ago Te Runanga o nga Kaimahi Maori o Aotearoa the national representative body of some 60000 Maori workers declared its support for the rolling strike action being taken this week by Sky City workers who are being threatened by moves to roll back working conditions and create a new minimum wage structure. If these horror stories are not enough here is another one from Laila Harré from the National Distribution Union who told the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee about an employee in a high-end dress shop. The employee was told by her boss to use a bucket out the back of the shop rather than lock up when she needed to go to the toilet. 
It makes me ashamed to think that we have some employers in this country who still treat their staff like this in the pursuit of the mighty dollar. But apparently the Service and Food Workers Union reckons that most of the calls it gets are from workers and parents of kids who have just started work who ask about their rest and meal break entitlements. So yes the Maori Party supports the provisions for workers to have meal breaks in order to help raise standards for workers in Aotearoa with the only question being of course why it has taken so long. Like many others I thought that meal breaks were already compulsory but apparently they are not. Although I know that there are many excellent employers out there doing everything that they can to ensure that their workers are happy and productive clearly there are also those out there who just do not give a damn. 
The other focus of this bill is to allow mothers to breastfeed their children at work. Given that the 2006 census showed that 75 percent of mothers of baby children are now at work just to help make ends meet this bill is really just simple recognition of that sad reality. Economic circumstances are forcing young mothers to go to work rather than their being able to choose to go to work to buy luxuries for the house and this bill allows mothers to feed and nurture their babies in the workplace. Mind you the other side of this whole issue is the deepening economic crisis that is forcing both parents to have to work to feed clothe and house families today compared with 30-odd years ago when families were able to be sustained on just one wage. When the 40-hour working week was first introduced it was based on the understanding that the income for 40 hours’ work would be enough to support a household. Clearly that scenario no longer applies; clearly the comparative standard of living has fallen alarmingly and just as clearly we need to be worried about this continuing pressure not only for families to work but also often for both parents to hold down two and sometimes three jobs. It might have been better if the sponsor of this bill had simply extended paid parental leave to 12 months so that women could actually stay at home rather than have to go back to work with their children at the breast. But in the absence of that move and in the reality of the pressing economic crisis on families in Aotearoa this bill allows women to breastfeed in a workplace and hopefully it will encourage the Government to move quickly to implement ILO Convention 183 which also arose out of the revision of maternity protection. 
The Maori Party will endorse the breastfeeding provisions consistent with our push for paid parental leave and support for whanau and we will support the meal break provisions in line with our clearly stated support for workers’ rights. Tena koe kia ora tatou.