Fenton Darien: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to MinistersText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeFenton Darien: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers[Sitting date: 27 August 2013. Volume:693;Page:13110. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]10.DARIEN FENTON (Labour) to theMinister of Labour: What advice if any has he received about whether workers will be better or worse off under the Employment Relations Amendment Bill?Hon SIMON BRIDGES (Minister of Labour): Well from the real workers’ party in this Parliament it is great to answer this question. Overall the advice I have received suggests that the changes will create an employment relations framework that increases flexibility and choice and ensures a balance of fairness for employers and employees.Hon Trevor Mallard: The member’s never done a day’s work in his life—never done a day’s work in his life.Hon SIMON BRIDGES: The bill is not about making things worse for workers although I am sure the member has convinced herself it is. To the member who says I have never done a day’s work in my life I have worked at Foodtown I have worked in bars I have worked in cleaning—probably more than that loser ever has.Darien Fenton: Will workers be better or worse off given that his bill will mean a return to the situation under the Unemployment Contracts Act where unions fail at the first hurdle of bargaining if an employer insists they want only individual agreements?Hon SIMON BRIDGES: As I have said per se it is actually not about better or worse off. But protracted—Hon Member: Answer the question.Hon SIMON BRIDGES: Well I am answering the question. But protracted bargaining that goes on and on and is contentious is in no one’s interest actually. The real way to get wages up is through better productivity and more profitability which results in more money in workers’ pockets.Darien Fenton: Will workers be better or worse off under the provision in his bill where the so-called 60-day grace period is actually a 100-day no-strike period where workers have neither the protection of collective bargaining nor the right to strike?Hon SIMON BRIDGES: Well the purpose of the grace period is very clear. Of course if you have got a collective bargaining period that comes to an end you need to then have a mechanism so that it does not just go straight back to collective bargaining. But as I said in the answer earlier it is in no one’s interest to have protracted endless bargaining that gets no one anywhere. It is much better just to have a good faith relationship where workers and employers benefit.Darien Fenton: How will bargaining be more efficient as he claims if every district health board decides to abandon its multi-employer collective agreements for doctors nurses and service workers and negotiate hospital by hospital as they did in the past?Hon SIMON BRIDGES: The member well knows there is still good faith there is still freedom of association and there is still absolutely collective bargaining and a role for unions in everything in this bill.Darien Fenton: Does he believe that workers think they will be better off; if so why does he think that 1500 workers in Wellington 5000 workers in Auckland and 1200 workers in Christchurch have attended rallies to tell him he is wrong?Hon SIMON BRIDGES: Well overall they will be better off because we will have a more productive and a more businesslike working environment. But the fact of thematter is that with a union membership in this country of nearly 400000 actually the numbers she and her lot managed to get out were stuff-all.