Fenton Darien: Holidays Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
Fenton Darien: Holidays Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
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DARIEN FENTON (Labour) 
: 
 John Key said long hours at work both parents being in employment childcare shortages growing interest rates and rising bills can create a far from ideal environment for good parenting and family relationships. We agree with that; he is absolutely right. So why does the Government advocate for longer hours to be spent at work by allowing workers to cash up their fourth week’s holiday thereby keeping both parents at work—because the fact is that workers are not getting pay increases so many will be attracted to do that—and also refuse to address the issues that we have about the long work hours culture that we have in New Zealand? The Holidays Amendment Bill in conjunction with the Employment Relations Amendment Bill (No 2) which we have just passed this afternoon to the shame of this Parliament and the legislation on the Order Paper that provides for the removal of meal and rest breaks are contributing to a claw-back of longstanding employment rights and entitlements. These bills treat workers as being untrustworthy. They remove existing protections and they weaken previous gains in working conditions. 
The previous Labour Government brought in significant improvements with the Holidays Act 2003. I note that National voted against them particularly the fourth week’s annual leave. I will recap on the provisions of the Holidays Act 2003. First of all the purpose of the Act is to promote balance—I repeat the word “balance”—between work and other aspects of workers’ lives. Labour brought in the fourth week’s annual leave for rest and recreation. That is the purpose of the leave; it was not for money. Labour brought in payment at time and a half plus a day off when a worker has to work on a paid public holiday 5 days of sick leave a year after 6 months’ employment and bereavement leave as well. We got the fourth week’s extra leave only in 2003. Australia has had it since 1974. It took 30 years for workers to win an extra fourth week’s leave. Now it is up for grabs and I will get into that a little more as I get into my speech. 
I will also comment on the ministerial advisory group that the Minister referred to. She made it sound as though there had been a large level of agreement on that group. There was a bit of agreement. The ministerial advisory group had people from the Council of Trade Unions Business New Zealand and so on on it. But there were a whole lot of things that they did not agree on. The only thing they agreed on was the provision to transfer a public holiday to another day of cultural significance although the caveat from the Council of Trade Unions was that there needed to be adequate protections to ensure that where that happens the worker who works on the public holiday must be paid time and a half and that the provision is not used for a reason to avoid doing so. I am not confident that those protections are in place. They agreed that there would be no change to the treatment of public holidays—well there is. It also agreed that there would be no change to the treatment and entitlements of casual employees—well that is good. 
But the ministerial advisory group did not agree on the cash up of annual holidays—the members did not agree on that. They did not agree on the formula for determining average daily pay. They did not agree on a whole range of other things including making Easter Sunday another holiday just as a matter of interest. So the idea that this bill flowed from the ministerial working group is completely untrue. The problem with it is that apart from the research that was done during the work of the ministerial advisory group it is based on really poor data. Trevor Mallard has referred to the regulatory impact statement and the real holes in it and the difficulties that the Minister’s department had in trying to find any evidence for some of the provisions that are in this bill. 
I will go back to the issue of the fourth week’s leave and why we have an issue about the cash up. I can understand why any worker would be attracted to the idea of being paid for 53 weeks but working 52 particularly in this environment where there has been zero or very low pay increases—I can understand that. But the problem is that leave is not a commodity; it should not be up for sale. Once it is up for sale that will weaken that fourth week’s provision for vulnerable workers. Over time it will not become a fourth week’s annual leave; it will become just part of one’s salary. I know that the protections are written into the bill but that entitlement is being chipped away. We will lose the fourth week’s leave which was fought for over 30 years. As I said that is why Labour is opposed to that amendment. I understand why people think of the fourth week as providing a little extra cash but it is quite shameful that people are in a situation whereby they cannot afford to spend time with their families. They need the cash. They want to spend the extra money they will get from the fourth week’s leave. That is my objection. 
The other objection is that a lot of people worked very very hard over the years to win a fourth week’s annual leave. It did not just come about. The previous Labour Government enacted it in the end but lots of people had campaigned for it for many many years. Like paid parental leave eventually we got there but some women had campaigned on that entitlement for many many years. I remember when the then National Government thought that paid parental leave should be cashed up. Do members remember the baby bonus idea: that people did not have to take leave to look after their baby which is what paid parental leave is about? It was said they could cash up the paid parental leave because they might need to buy a few extra nappies. 
Minimum conditions are supposed to be minimum conditions. Workers can and do negotiate extra holidays. If they want to cash those up that is fine but the minimum entitlement of New Zealand workers should not be undermined by this provision. 
I want to talk a little about public holidays and how that provision is being undermined. The first point is around the alternative holiday. Effectively the bill provides that the employer gets to decide on it. If there cannot be any agreement the employer must give at least 2 weeks’ notice and gets to decide when the alternative holiday will be. That is really really unfair. Under current provisions the employer and employee have a year to try to reach agreement because the employee has a year in which to take the alternative holiday. What I can see happening is families being forced to work on Christmas Day as many workers are and having to take the alternative day off at a time not of their choosing when their family are either on holiday or back at work. Again going back to what John Key said about both parents being in employment childcare shortages low pay etc. I say this provision will add to that problem. 
The third point I will touch on is the whole area of sick leave and the really silly provision that requires a sick note for the first day’s illness. Nobody can tell us where that came from. It certainly did not come through the ministerial advisory group. It was not raised at all—definitely not. There was no advice from the Department of Labour on that. No one asked for it as far as we can tell. It does not seem to have been on anyone’s mind. Maybe Roger Douglas suggested that everybody should need a sick note after 1 day’s leave—like he did with regard to the extension of the 90-day trial. Maybe it was Roger Douglas; maybe the Minister was rolled again. There is plenty of data out there about this which the Minister does not seem to have considered. For example the 2009 national employers wage and salary survey looked at 593 employers with 38000 employees and found that the average number of sick days that New Zealanders had taken in the preceding 12 months was 4.6 days. So we do not have a problem with people not being at work because of illness. As we saw from the report from Treasury last week we have a problem with people going to work when they are ill. We were worried about swine flu and we got through that thank goodness. But another pandemic will come along one day and how on earth will we prevent its spreading? How will we prevent the spread of illness? How do we stop that happening if workers in difficult economic circumstances feel that under this legislation they have to go to work when they are ill? 
This bill is a disgrace. As my colleague Trevor Mallard said it is a damn shame that the third reading is being debated today given the awful situation that we have on the West Coast.