Harawira Hone: Employment Relations Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
Harawira Hone: Employment Relations Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
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HONE HARAWIRA (Maori Party—Te Tai Tokerau) 
: 
 Tena koe Mr Assistant Speaker. Kia ora tatou te Whare. A couple of months back on International Justice for Cleaners Day I asked the Deputy Prime Minister what level of wage and salary increase he would recommend for cleaners including those who clean our offices here in Parliament. I did not get an answer. I would like to think that if I were to ask that same question again today I would get an answer. Mind you even if Dr Cullen does not want to talk about the low wages that thousands of cleaners food workers laundry workers and caretakers earn in Aotearoa at least this bill will do something to enhance their job security. 
This bill means that every now and then regardless of the yelling and screaming in this House—and the posturing pontificating and the downright bad manners—we can do a decent day’s work. We can actually make a difference. I say that because a decent day’s work is a luxury when we consider some of the terms and conditions many Kiwi workers are faced with. Our cleaners here for example are on low wages and they work really hard spend lots of time away from home and work long and difficult hours. There are often safety issues too especially for women who are working in a large building—sometimes working alone—because often no buses are running when they finish work so they have to walk home. I know that because our cleaners are just leaving here when I come to work early in the morning. 
The attack on a Kelston Primary School cleaner a couple of months ago also shows just how vulnerable cleaners working at night often without security can be. Not only are the working conditions of cleaners poor but they are paid as little as $10.95 an hour and get little recognition for their work. If that is not bad enough they also suffer from a high rate of chemical-induced skin disorders. So doing something to help cleaners’ job security is something to be proud of. 
I recall that just over a year ago while we were hot on the election trail cleaners working for Spotless Services at Kaitaia Hospital went on strike over the poor conditions they faced at Kaitaia Hospital Bay of Islands Hospital and Whangarei Hospital. Their actions brought to the attention of the nation the plight of our most vulnerable workers and their strike brought the media flocking to Kaitaia. They spotlighted the issues of pay poverty penal rates and overtime. 
The Maori Party is happy to support any efforts to protect the rights of vulnerable workers as we now do in our support for this bill. The bill clarifies the protections for workers affected by the sale or transfer of a business or the contracting out of their work. This bill will safeguard terms conditions and continuity of employment for vulnerable workers like cleaners. Without that protection people working for contract companies can lose their jobs through successive contracting. But with this bill in place vulnerable workers will be allowed to transfer their employment terms and conditions to the person who takes over that work. 
I wanted to go back to the situation of the cleaners today because it was really the cleaners and particularly the decision of the Employment Court in  
Gibbs and others  
v 
 Crest Commercial Cleaning Ltd 
 that showed up the flaws in the legislation—that vulnerable employees have less protection than ordinary employees. The cleaners’ Clean Start industrial campaign has also helped keep the heat on this issue. They have shown us how hard it is for vulnerable workers to raise their concerns about workloads pay and conditions and do all this while holding down several jobs at shamefully low pay in order to make ends meet. But I also want to highlight the wider group of vulnerable workers—food workers laundry workers caretakers and cleaners—who are contracted in contracted out and often contracted off. New Zealand Council of Trade Unions research shows that contracting and casual work often result in a deterioration of health and safety for workers. 
This bill comes about because the first bill suffered from too much haste to achieve a bad result. Although it was clear that the original Employment Relations Law Reform Bill was intended to cover outsourcing and contracts changes made at the select committee meant that it did not. So as the court said in the Crest Commercial Cleaning case: “The extent to which a court can divine and apply Parliament’s true intended meaning to ill-expressed legislation is at the heart of the case.” The rest is history. Without this bill there are no obligations on new contract companies to offer employment or similar terms and conditions as workers had with the outgoing company. How does that translate on the factory floor? Well it means regular job losses the loss of terms and conditions a reduction in wages and hours increased workloads and the loss of entitlements as demonstrated in discrimination against unionists and the undermining of collective bargaining. 
During the course of this bill we in the Maori Party have done our best to raise scenarios in the House of construction workers in Wellington supermarket workers in Palmerston North and cleaners in Kaitaia. Far far too many of those people are Maori Pasifika or other migrants. Why are we not surprised that poorly drafted legislation often makes already vulnerable workers even more vulnerable? I quote again the findings of the court in the Crest case: “Every week these situations are occurring and every week workers continue to lose their employment their hours their service based entitlements their wage rates.” So having had Parliament declare them the most vulnerable of all workers these cleaners have ended up with the least legal protection of any workers in New Zealand. In the meantime this cycle of employment insecurity and oppression continues. 
Next week we will celebrate the anniversary of the last apartheid test played in this country between the All Blacks and the Springboks. On that same day we will also commemorate the 30th anniversary of the death of Steve Biko a black activist from Azania who was beaten to death by the South African police while being held in detention. On the 20th anniversary of his death President Nelson Mandela said: “It is the dictate of history to bring to the fore the kind of leaders who seize the moment and who cohere the wishes and aspirations of the oppressed.” 
I send my warmest congratulations and solidarity to all those vulnerable workers who have stood on the picket line signed petitions and taken their cases to court in order to put an end to exploitation and oppression. With this bill we also pay our tributes to those cleaners those brickies and those laundry workers who have come to the fore seized the moment and taken the risks knowing that the driving thrust of their work will be to overcome oppression. It is because of them that the Maori Party stands today in support of the Employment Relations Amendment Bill. Kia ora tatou.