Chauvel Charles: Employment Relations Amendment Bill (No 2) — Second Reading In Committee Speaker Recalled 
Chauvel Charles: Employment Relations Amendment Bill (No 2) — Second Reading In Committee Speaker Recalled 
[Volume:668;Page:15391] 
CHARLES CHAUVEL (Labour) 
: 
 I will speak a little about the proposed provisions for restricting union access because I think my colleague Darien Fenton made some very good contributions on that point. The proposal in the Employment Relations Amendment Bill (No 2) to make access to workplaces conditional on the consent of the employer is very problematic. It is an ideological and deliberate attack on the democratic right of wage earners and salary earners to join unions and resolve issues that arise in the workplace. It is therefore ironic to look at the explanatory note of the bill. It states: “This change is intended to increase levels of choice and fairness for employers …”. Well of course that change comes at a cost and the cost is to employees. They are the ones who lose out in terms of their freedom of choice and their access to fairness in the workplace. 
I hope the Minister in the chair the Hon Georgina te Heuheu might take a call on this; it would be good to hear from a representative of the Government why this change is thought to be necessary. I know that the Minister will want to tell the Committee why this aspect of Government policy has been put in place because the regulatory impact statement as well as Kate Wilkinson’s own policy paper dated 15 May last year says: “There does not appear to be widespread evidence of union representatives exercising their current rights to enter workplaces in an inappropriate way resulting in disruption for business operations or adversely impacting on the employment relationship between employer and union members.” That was the point just made by Lynne Pillay. There is no evidence of any need for this change. There is no evidence of abuse; there are not even anecdotal stories being told about unions abusing their current right of access to workplaces. So why is this change being mooted? I hope we can hear from the Minister because if we do not then we have to conclude that it is an ideological change an ideological attack on the unions. 
National might think that will play well electorally but we will see because New Zealanders are becoming sick of these attacks on ordinary wage earners and salary earners. We have seen those attacks already in a number of pieces of legislation and we cannot expect to see the erosion of these sorts of terms and conditions time and time again with no evidence of the need for it. We hear pious speeches in this House all the time about how we should only ever legislate if there is a clear need. That is why we brought in the regulatory impact statement process. Members opposite say we should always be very clear about why we are legislating but it is not clear why this provision is needed. There is no evidence anywhere of abuse. Even Business New Zealand said that this measure was not a high priority for it. It does not receive many complaints from employers about union access. 
The Prime Minister tried to sell this policy to the National Party conference as one of the steps to a “more productive economy and increased employment.” Yet even he in October told the Council of Trade Unions that this issue was not a “driving priority”. So why on earth is Parliament here in urgency ramming through a piece of legislation to restrict the right of the representatives of wage earners and salary earners—ordinary Kiwis—to ensure that workers’ terms and conditions are being met by their employers via meaningful inspection in the workplace? Why restrict workers’ rights to be visited and comforted by their union officials without their being impeded by employers? Why is this being done when it is very clear from the evidence that there is no need for the change? 
The access provisions in the current legislation were very carefully thought through. They are there because it is necessary to ensure that union officials can check whether health and safety employment standards and what have you are being honoured in the workplace. Of course an employer will run into difficulties if he or she is not honouring those standards. Those employers will take advantage of the provisions that Parliament will be enacting in urgency today because only the dodgy employers will want to keep out the representatives of unions. That is plain because there is no evidence of abuse of these provisions at the moment. The access provisions at the moment enable wage earners and salary earners to choose to be represented by knowledgable people in grievance situations.