Little Andrew: Employment Relations (Secret Ballot for Strikes) Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Little Andrew: Employment Relations (Secret Ballot for Strikes) Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
[Sitting date: 09 May 2012. Volume:679;Page:2116. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
ANDREW LITTLE (Labour) 
: 
 I want to begin by acknowledging our colleague Tau Henare. I know that in his comments earlier this afternoon he referred to comments I made in the second reading debate that he took offence at. So I want to begin on a positive note by acknowledging that and by saying to Tau Henare that I apologise for any offence caused by the reference to him and his wife and that I certainly wish him the best.  
The thing about Tau Henare is this and the Rt Hon Winston Peters acknowledged it too: Tau Henare spent some time in an honourable and noble cause working for workers in the union movement. I have long had a philosophy as a union secretary that those who have worked for working people and in their cause are entitled to have that acknowledged and respected because it is difficult work. It is hard work. It is also for that reason though that I wonder how it is that Mr Henare has found himself in the position where he is promoting this legislation the Employment Relations (Secret Ballot for Strikes) Amendment Bill which is not about supporting workers and which does not add create or generate any greater freedom of choice.  
Although Mr Henare quoted Martin Luther King—and even he acknowledges that he is not his equivalent as Jami-Lee Ross had suggested—my favourite union quote comes from an outstanding union leader of a period gone by John L. Lewis the first head of the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations. He said—and I remember it in my best recall which is slightly better than John Banks’—that “It ill behooves those who have sheltered in the house of labor and supped at its table to criticize with equal fervour and fine impartiality labor and its protagonists when they are locked in deadly embrace.” There have been benign remarks about those employers who have embarked on vicious lockouts this year Talley’s AFFCO the Ports of Auckland and Oceania Group referring to them in benign terms when actually that is the most vicious action that an employer can take on workers. And this legislation says that it is about promoting freedom of choice for workers! Well let us get the concepts right.  
David Bennett the current chair of the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee which considered this legislation said in his comments that it is about freedom of choice. Workers have freedom of choice. They have the freedom of choice to belong to a union. We have voluntary unionism in this country—freedom of association. That is the choice in just the same way that people have the freedom to do so many other things. But once they have exercised that freedom of choice we do not then get the Government to go interfering in all the other decisions that they get involved in. We do not get it involved in the Papakura Chess Club when it comes to elect its president for the year decide who the committee is or decide how it will spend its money. We do not have legislation that does that.  
We allow people the freedom of association to belong and we allow workers the freedom to make that choice to stick with their colleagues and to stick with their workmates. Here is the real truth about National: it does not like it when workers not only have freedom of choice but also exercise it because it upsets its corporate mates.  
I might add this too for those who criticise me. I have worked in my time with thousands of workers and with hundreds of employers. The hard-grafting employers are trying to make a crust and are trying to make stuff they can sell on the international market. Every day they are battling against the economic conditions that are the responsibility of this Government not the least of which is an extraordinarily high exchange rate which this Government cannot care about because it is led by a Prime Minister who made his money—made his millions of dollars—off gaming exchange rates. It will not do anything about it. But there are so many employers who struggle to make ends meet who look after their workforce and who are trying to export into markets who when they price a job do not know when they come to supply whether they are going to make money off it. National does not care about those employers. It cares about the moneymen the ones who can write out the big cheques—the ones who look after it.  
I have worked for the strugglers and the battlers the employers and their workforces to make it work to make it good and they are the ones we should care about. This bill will do nothing for them or their workforces. Workers have the freedom of choice but they should not then have that freedom of choice interfered with by silly meddling meaningless fruitless pointless legislation like this because it will not help.  
The difference between Labour Party and the National Party is that we are not locked in a 1970s mentality of the workplace and workforces as it is. Those members just do not get it. With all due respect to Tau Henare who is the great modernist of the National Party he has not worked for a union for nearly 20–for over 20 years. 
Moana Mackey 
: 30 years. 
ANDREW LITTLE 
: Thirty years—it is now 30 years. No wonder those members do not get it. No wonder they think that it is really smart to pass a law like this because they are just out of touch and they just do not care.  
We can see what this legislation is about. We saw it because of the submissions that National unleashed from its corporate employer mates in Business New Zealand. Let us see what it said. It said: “Oh yeah don’t stop at legislating for a secret ballot.” which so many unions now have. They are unions like the New Zealand Amalgamated Engineering Printing and Manufacturing Union the Service and Food Workers Union the FIRST Union the New Zealand Nurses Organisation and all those other decent good hard-edged leading unions. They already have them. What did Business New Zealand say? It said: “Don’t stop there. Introduce more hurdles. Make it a 75 percent threshold before you can take strike action.” Well I do not see Business New Zealand calling for a 75 percent threshold for its boardroom decisions. Oh no! It would not want that. It is too hard. Of course the party of the corporate dollar sitting opposite would not want to do that either.  
The right to withdraw one’s labour is absolutely fundamental. It has been recognised in our laws for over a hundred years. It has been recognised internationally through that great institution the International Labour Organization. Blood was lost to secure it in this country and in so many other countries and even today in many countries around the world working people are losing their lives losing their limbs to fight for the right to organise to work with their colleagues and to stand up to their employers to get a fair and just settlement of their conditions.  
The dividing line between a society that allows workers to withdraw their labour or does not is legislation like this. This is about increasing the domination and control by employers. There is no call for it. It is not necessary in modern and effective workplace regulation which recognises and respects the choice that working people can make. The right to withdraw labour—the right to make the collective decision with your workmates to withdraw your labour—must be upheld and must be safeguarded. This bill is ill-informed. It is out of touch. It is a silly gesture designed to obstruct the observance of this basic right. It is unnecessary.  
Workers can make their own decision. They will make a decision if they think it is right to go on strike and they will make a decision if they think it is not right to go on strike. If the member who is promoting this bill was genuinely concerned about fairness and equality then we would also have in this bill equal requirements on employers before they lock out. That is not there and that lends the lie to those who say that this bill is about greater freedom and greater choice—it is not. It is not.  
The language that Mr Henare used when he made his comments was: when workers are “asked to withdraw their labour”. I can tell you as someone who has been at those meetings that at difficult disputes and at difficult negotiations you do not ask workers to withdraw their labour; they demand it. Actually for most union leaders their job is to counsel workers about what the implications are of industrial action because it is hard nasty ugly stuff and you do not get into it light-heartedly. I have yet to meet a worker of the thousands I have dealt with who light-heartedly or wantonly votes for industrial action. They just do not do it.  
The difference between this side and that side is that those members do not meet workers. They do not talk to workers. They do not meet meatworkers either. They should do because they would hear quite a good story about how a nasty vicious employer is treating its workforce. If you want to know the reality about that dispute here is the email I got from a very wealthy person north of Auckland who has been to a stock agent to talk about selling his stock. He was told this. The stock agent said: “Don’t. They are offering very low prices which are nothing to do with the international trade. It is due to the strike.” There is a backlog of cattle awaiting slaughter. By refusing to deal with employees and the union the owners of the company were able to manipulate the market down.  
That is what Talley’s is doing. It will use industrial law to do it. This Government is supporting and promoting it and this law is just a furtherance of that objective. It is wrong; there is no call for it. It should be scrapped and if any member opposite has a conscience and understands working people and the workplace today they will gladly rise and say: “We don’t need this and we will vote against it.”