Sharples Pita: Employment Relations Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Sharples Pita: Employment Relations Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:629;Page:1483] 
Dr PITA SHARPLES (Co-Leader—Maori Party) 
: 
 I have been amused by some of the political commentators who have passed judgment on the performance of Maori Party MPs suggesting that because my learned colleague from the north Hone Harawira and myself have donned a tie miraculously we have acquired a sense of discipline an honest work ethic and a conscientious approach to the endeavours of this House. The reality is that hard work industry efficiency planning and accomplishment are synonymous with what it is to be Maori. Our earliest documented histories emphasised the advantages of work and of communal effort. Equally it is evident from any analysis of pre-colonial employment that idleness clumsiness and wastefulness were treated with contempt. One of the expressions of that time was: “Ma te werawera o tou mata e kai ai koe i te haunga ahi o te kai.” That can be interpreted to mean that by the perspiration on one’s face one will taste the piquant flavour of cooked food. In other words hard honest work by all will bring its own rewards. 
The rewards of collective prosperity of unity and of the well-being of people are values that pass down the generations. In this world view the possibility of vulnerable employees who are affected by the sale or transfer of a business or the contracting-out of work simply does not fit. For a start as in the old English adage the measure of a community is only as strong as its weakest link. Moving down the centuries I wonder what our tipuna would have thought of the workplaces of today. 
The Maori Party will be supporting the Employment Relations Amendment Bill. We do so in recognition of the fact that quality employment and productivity emerge from a decent work environment and decent wages. A decent work environment means that all staff are valued including vulnerable workers and that is exactly how it should be. Mauri mahi mauri ora; mauri noho mauri mate. Industry begets prosperity; idleness begets insecurity. Or through collective effort supporting all members of the team we can achieve economic gains and social stability. 
 To achieve those goals we now know that employment protection is required to ensure that groups of vulnerable employees are not standing out in the cold. And who are those vulnerable employees? Well one thing is for sure: they do not get promoted with a glossy career profile encouraging our children to grow up to be a vulnerable worker. Yet the combined trade unions the Minister of Labour and the other Labour Ministers all sing the same song justifying the introduction of this bill as necessary to protect the terms and conditions and continuity of employment of vulnerable workers. 
When we consider the situation for vulnerable workers we are considering the situation for many Maori and Pacific Island workers. In the 1980s the ruthless economic restructuring driven through by Labour increased Maori unemployment to record levels. I remember when it was 22 percent. The damage caused in the 1980s has left a lasting impact with the unemployment rate of 7.6 percent for Maori still three times that of Pakeha. That equates to thousands of Maori available for and seeking work. Facing the choice between the dole queues or the food banks many of our people will accept employment that is casualised lowly paid and insecure. 
The Maori Party members believe that the bill being discussed here today will benefit the many Maori workers and their whanau who are affected by subsequent contracting. Without the amendments that are tabled in this House vulnerable workers stand to lose employment and thus their income to face precarious terms and conditions or to have changes imposed upon them—such as changing hours of work and increased workload and associated stress—when there is a contract change. The legislation will overtake the Employment Court decision made last year that said employees did not have employment protection in succession-to-contract situations. Again this House is facing the dire consequences of an error of lawmaking much as we saw last week with the Land Transport Amendment Bill. 
The legislation amends Part 6A of the principal Act and relates to the transfer of terms and conditions of certain vulnerable workers when a business is sold or work is contracted out. As this House will recall last July—and it has been mentioned before—six Dunedin kindergarten cleaners lost their bid to keep jobs in the first case to test the employment protection provisions included in the legislation in 2004. The workers found themselves out of a job after their employer’s cleaning contract was taken over by another company Crest Commercial Cleaning which declined to keep them on. It is all well and good to say that the intent of the original Act was always to protect the terms and conditions and continuity of employment of vulnerable workers such as cleaners. Well as the Employment Court in  
Gibbs and others 
 v  
Crest Commercial Cleaning Ltd 
 showed the provisions of the Act were not clear enough to uphold the intention in the event of subsequent contracting. 
Once again as with the land transport error it is real families real workers real situations that suffer because of sloppy drafting. They are workers who are already on low incomes; workers who may already be under pressure as they manage the demands of juggling their employment with childcare and with whanau and community commitments; workers who may be struggling to manage multiple employment responsibilities in the stress of trying to supplement low pay and scrabble together enough to put bread on the table. We know that the faces of a lot of these workers are brown. We have been glad to meet with Te Kauwae Kaimahi Runanga which represents the jawbone of Maori trade union workers. We are aware of the huge impact of poverty wages casualisation insecurities and cultural undervaluing all of which go on for far too many workers who are Maori. 
The amendments are setting in place a practical solution to a very real problem. The Maori Party is aware that contracting change-overs are happening all the time and every week low-paid workers are losing their employment as a result. Workers are telling us too often that imposed changes to work hours can and do result in job loss. Without the amendments employers are able to screw down wages and conditions. The bill ensures that employees can now enforce their rights when an employer fails to provide the right to elect to transfer by providing remedies and penalties for non-compliance. If workers transferring to a new employer are surplus to needs they have the right to bargain redundancy entitlements from the new employer. 
The legislation being laid before us today is a step along the way to assisting our vulnerable workers improve their lot. But it is still only a limp band-aid on a seeping hakihaki—that is like a sore—oozing out over this nation: the spreading sickness of poverty. This Parliament must seek to reduce the gap between low-income taxpayers and the average income for the nation. How often do we need to remind this House that six out of every 10 Maori have an annual income of $20000 or less or putting it another way that the incomes of Maori people are on average $163 less per week than those of Pakeha—$437 compared with $600? The Maori Party has always said that if we are looking for real progress for our workers and families the most effective policy change would be to increase the minimum wage to $12.50 per hour. This would mean a figure of in the vicinity of $25000 for those working between 37.5 and 40 hours per week. So while we are happy to support the new amendments in their intention to establish employment protection in succession-to-contract situations we will not resile from continuing to front the challenge against poverty in Aotearoa. We believe that in a buoyant economy we should expect more people to benefit from employment opportunities and wages that can support real living conditions.