Pillay Lynne: Employment Relations (Secret Ballot for Strikes) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Pillay Lynne: Employment Relations (Secret Ballot for Strikes) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:676;Page:21562] 
LYNNE PILLAY (Labour) 
: 
 I will probably repeat some of what has been said by other members in the hope that the member in the chair Tau Henare will get it. As others have said the purpose of requiring unions to hold a secret ballot when membership of the union is voluntary is in itself absolutely bizarre. As my colleague Carol Beaumont has said if members do not like the outcome then quite frankly they do not need to belong to the union. I think the member in the chair is going back back back in time to when union membership was compulsory. I would like him to take a call and explain to the Committee whether membership was compulsory or voluntary when he was a union official. He seems to have no comprehension at all about the secret ballot process. 
If people do not feel compelled to take a strike vote then they do not need to be members of the union. But frankly if they do not approve of the process then they have the option of not withdrawing their labour. The very point of having a strike vote is that the members have to have faith in the democratic process they have to have that sense of unity and they have to think: “We are taking this step which we treat very seriously because we are withdrawing our labour and we are therefore not getting paid for the day.” Before they do that they give it very careful consideration. If they do take that strike vote then they need to know that it is transparent and that they are supported by their fellow union members. The whole point about this Employment Relations (Secret Ballot for Strikes) Amendment Bill is that it contradicts itself in so many ways. 
I think the member did indicate that he would take a call and if that is the case—yes I see a little smile as though he is going to get to his feet next—he can enlighten the Committee on the points that have been raised. I think that is the respectful thing to do for members who are genuinely perplexed about what this bill intends to do. 
As Carol Beaumont and Darien Fenton have said if there is this Draconian approach—this is what the union has to do—then how will that be enforced? What will not be acceptable is some naughty employer saying: “Look I want to sit in on your union meeting because I want to make sure that those members there are having a secret ballot.” I am not saying that this is every employer by any stretch of the imagination but I tell this Committee that if there is any intimidation or stand-over tactics it is when bad employers not good employers try to interfere with the democratic process of unions. 
I am worried and I would like the member when he addresses all the other issues that have been raised to explain how this will be enforced. Who will police it? Who will make sure it is policed? There will be employers out there who think: “I had better go in and in the interests of those workers just make sure that it is a secret ballot.” If that member thinks it is not intimidating to have an employer sitting there when employees are discussing the terms and conditions in their collective agreement then he is quite clearly dreaming. 
I am looking at the submission from the Council of Trade Unions and I compliment it on its very measured submission. Like us the Council of Trade Unions does not fundamentally oppose the principle of a secret ballot. In fact it supports it. But what it is saying is that on balance if that is the case then before the employer makes decisions like locking out workers there should be a secret ballot. As Darien Fenton said it seems a very very unbalanced and unfair principle which is exactly what I said before.