Fenton Darien: Holidays Amendment Bill — Second Reading In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee 
Fenton Darien: Holidays Amendment Bill — Second Reading In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee 
[Volume:668;Page:15460] 
DARIEN FENTON (Labour) 
: 
 I am a bit unhappy about having to address another bill attacking workers’ rights the Holidays Amendment Bill on the same day. However that is the agenda of this Government. Labour understands that that is what the Government is doing. It has made its intentions very clear and I think this is just the beginning of what we will see from the Minister of Labour. She has not been able to deny a whole lot of things including undermining or changing the Minimum Wage Act so I think we can look forward to a whole lot more. 
To everybody listening out there I say that I hope they understand that today we debated the Employment Relations Amendment Bill which still has its third reading to go. It does away with workers’ rights in their first 90 days of employment and restricts access to advice from union representatives in the workplace. That was the first bill. In the second bill we are now debating the issues of the selling off of the fourth week of annual leave making it possible for employers to decide when alternative holidays may be taken and the possibility of employers making workers get a sick note after 1 day’s sickness. 
I will address the matter of choice which the previous speaker David Bennett went into. Let us be clear about the choice that is being offered with the fourth week of annual leave. I am absolutely totally opposed to the provision and I will get into that a little bit more. The only choice that is given to workers under the Holidays Amendment Bill is the choice to ask—to go down on their knees and ask—permission from their employer to cash up their annual leave. Who gets to decide if they get the cash? The employer does. That is not a choice. What is the choice? Where is the choice in that? The Minister said that everyone is incredibly happy about it. Well I must say that I think workers will take up this provision only because they have not had a pay rise. Once workers understand that the choice is all on the employers’ side and that they have been conned I do not think they will be as happy as that. 
The other choice in the bill is for the employers to decide when workers take their public holiday. A worker works on a public holiday when everybody else has the day off with their families and becomes entitled to an alternative day off. Under current law workers get to decide when they would like to take that alternative day. They get a period of time—I think it is a year—and then if they cannot reach agreement the employer decides. Under this bill the employer gets to decide almost immediately. The difficulty with that is that workers who have to work on Christmas Day for example will not really get any say or any choice about when they have the alternative day off. Many workers will be enjoying their Christmas Day the following Thursday or Friday when their husband or their partner is back at work and their kids have gone off on holiday to the beach somewhere. So there is no choice in that issue either. 
The last matter of choice I address is the choice that this bill gives employers to demand a sick note for illness on the first day of a worker’s absence due to sickness. 
Hon Parekura Horomia 
: That’s sharing and caring! 
DARIEN FENTON 
: Yes. Really really good—the choice to drag a sick child out of bed and drag them off— 
Hon Lianne Dalziel 
: How much does it cost to go to the doctor? 
DARIEN FENTON 
: Well quite a lot. But to be fair the bill does provide that the employer— 
Hon Lianne Dalziel 
: Oh the employer pays. 
DARIEN FENTON 
: —pays the reasonable cost. The bill does not include the cost of a worker having to find a babysitter to look after the other kids. It does not include the cost of driving to the doctor. It does not include the time that people will lose from their job while they are waiting at the doctor. 
Hon Lianne Dalziel 
: The doctors want this? 
DARIEN FENTON 
: No the doctors do not want this. That choice has not been offered to the doctors. 
Going back to the select committee process I say that I was a member of the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee and I recall that it was not a fair process. It is not a fair process that such a substantive issue that affects every worker in New Zealand is yet again rushed through under urgency. Submitters had 3 weeks to make submissions on this bill along with the bill alongside it the Employment Relations Amendment Bill. These are the biggest changes to the terms and conditions of workers—or the biggest attack on them actually—since the 1990s. It is a huge change that affects every single worker in the country: every single wage earner and salary earner from those who earn very little to those who earn a lot. One would have thought that people would be given a bit more time to make submissions. 
We did not have hundreds of submissions as the Minister said; we had thousands. There were thousands and thousands of submissions. The three key measures in the Holidays Amendment Bill that people objected to were the fourth week of annual leave being up for grabs employers being able to make a choice about when workers get to take their alternative public holiday and the sick leave provision. 
I will go back to the 2009 review of the Holidays Act which was where this all started. It was a tripartite process. The review was conducted by the Government with Business New Zealand and the Council of Trade Unions involved. The Council of Trade Unions entered that review in good faith because one of the underpinning requirements of the review was that the Holidays Act could be changed but entitlements could not be reduced. That is why the Council of Trade Unions went into it. 
That sounds really hollow now because that is what this bill does. It reduces entitlements and it undermines the fourth week’s holiday. It means that once again New Zealand workers will be comparing their entitlements to what happens in Australia and saying that it looks pretty good over there. Although Australian workers have had 4 weeks’ annual leave since 1974 New Zealand workers have had it for only a couple of years. 
Our objection to the cashing up of the fourth week’s leave is that the whole thinking and reasoning behind adding a fourth week’s leave after 30 years of campaigning for it is that New Zealand workers should have a fundamental right to rest and leisure including reasonable limitation on working hours—and they do not have that very often. It also includes holidays but this provision undermines that. Actually it is a fundamental human right. Putting the fourth week’s leave up for sale is like saying that people can trade off the minimum wage or that they could have a few more hours for a bit less. These are minimum entitlements. They should not be tradeable. 
We are concerned that the option to sell the fourth week’s leave will be forced on the most vulnerable workers and it will become part of their employment agreement when they are in their 90-day trial. It will be put in with their pay. It will inevitably lead to the degrading of the fourth week’s leave. It will become optional. Over time it will be degraded. 
Then the question has to be asked that if workers are able to cash up 1 week’s leave why not 2 or 3? Why have holidays at all? Workers could just have the money. That would be really good! Then employers would never have to worry about having workers off on leave. 
The other thing that I object to about this provision is that it will replace wage increases. That is the truth. Workers will line up and request their employer to cash up their leave because they have not had a wage increase. What has been happening to wages— 
Hon Lianne Dalziel 
: Simon Bridges just said that that is right. 
DARIEN FENTON 
: He just agreed; that is right. Wages in New Zealand have hardly moved under this Government; in fact they have gone backwards in many cases. Minimum wage workers got only a miserly 25c an hour in the last minimum wage increase. Another one is coming soon and I hope that the Minister will be a little bit more generous this time round. Where workers do not get a pay increase the cash for that extra week’s leave will be looking pretty good. 
Hon Lianne Dalziel 
: It’s worth 2 percent. 
DARIEN FENTON 
: That is right. One of the things the Minister could have thought of was putting a provision in the bill so the ability to cash up the fourth week of leave cannot be substituted for a wage increase. That is what we did in the KiwiSaver legislation but I think the Government removed it. 
Finally I say just quickly that the medical certificate provision is the silliest provision. It caused outrage and anger. Not only are people still outraged and angry about it but also people cannot believe how silly it is or see what difference it will make. It will make a difference to workers who have to go off and find a doctor—the doctors are already fully committed and we do not have enough—but it will not change absenteeism. We have a big problem with workers who go to work when they are ill because they cannot afford to take the day off. This will bring fear to workers. They will be worried about taking that day off because of the real hassle— 
Hon Lianne Dalziel 
: What if it’s just a cold? 
DARIEN FENTON 
: It could be just a cold but they will still have to go and get a doctor’s certificate. This provision has been ridiculed. I honestly thought that the Minister would have seen sense and withdrawn this provision. Who knows who made it up? It was never asked for in the review. Thank you.