Lees-Galloway IainEMPLOYMENT RELATIONS AMENDMENT BILLSecond ReadingHon IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety): I move That the Employment Relations Amendment Bill be now read a second time. I thank members of the Education and Workforce Committee for their hard work and consideration of the bill and I'd also like to thank all of those who made submissions on the bill. I'd particularly like to thank our coalition and confidence and supply partners for working with me since the select committee reported back. I've said several times in the House that if we saw a chance to improve the bill we would take it. Today I have tabled a Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) which does just that. I will return to the content of the SOP shortly but it is appropriate at the outset to record my gratitude to the New Zealand First Party and Green Party for the constructive manner in which discussions were held. Concerns raised by both parties have influenced the final shape of the bill with New Zealand First's protection of small and medium sized enterprises and regional businesses along with the Green Party's advocacy for vulnerable workers at the forefront of our negotiations. Both coalition partners believe that a better balance has now been reached. This Government is committed to building an economy that is growing and working for all of us. Changes made to the employment relations framework by the previous Government saw an erosion of working people's rights and a weakening of their voice through attacks on unions. This Government believes that people should have a say in the running of their workplace and be able to bargain for a fair day's pay for a fair day's work. We want to lift New Zealand into a high-wage high-skill economy with thriving regions. This bill is one piece of our plan to do this. There has been a significant amount of misinformation spread about the effect of this bill. I encourage everyone to focus on what the bill actually does. Substantially the bill largely returns the law to something very close to the settings that existed when Labour was last in Government. Those settings resulted in decent wage growth combined with low unemployment. It is encouraging to see that unemployment has fallen to rates not seen since that time and that the economy is growing strongly. The Government is putting more money into the pockets of hard-working New Zealanders through the Families Package and minimum wage increases and by strengthening collective bargaining settings. This bill gives effect to our vision by strengthening the role of collective bargaining worker voice and union rights in the workplace to deliver fair wages and conditions. It lifts minimum standards and delivers much-needed protections for workers—especially vulnerable workers. The select committee heard submissions from employers employees and unions. The committee has listened to those submitters and has recommended that the bill proceed with a number of amendments which I support. Cabinet has also agreed to three changes by way of Supplementary Order Paper 153. The first set of changes to the bill relates to submissions from employers who wanted greater clarity about the effect of the changes. The bill introduces requirements for employers to pass on information about the role and function of the union to prospective employees to help employees decide whether or not they would like to join a union. The committee recommended some changes to ensure these requirements do not come as a cost to employers. The committee has recommended clarification that the union is responsible for providing the information to the employer in the form in which they want it provided to prospective employees. This ensures that employers do not carry extra costs—for example for printing or storage—and that this information can be passed on in the easiest possible way for employers. The committee also recommended giving employers more time to assess the union information to decide whether it meets the grounds to refuse to pass it on extending this time frame from 10 working days to 15 working days. The grounds to refuse to pass on are confined to circumstances where the information either breaches confidentiality or the information may mislead or deceive the employee about the employer and would significantly undermine bargaining between them. The committee recommended clarifying that an employer representative may accept or refuse information from the union on behalf of the employer. Again this ensures the process is made simple and straightforward for employers. These changes will ensure that employers have greater clarity and more time to meet their obligations. Under the bill employees are provided a form within 10 days of commencing employment that sets out a choice about whether the employee intends to join a union. Some concerns were raised about the existing time frames associated with providing this form and returning it. The committee has recommended changes to simplify this process and to align the employee's choice to the 30-day rule. This means that the employee will have up until day 30 to return the form to the employer. This gives the employee time to talk to union delegates and understand the choice available to them while experiencing the terms and conditions of the collective under the 30-day rule. The committee recommended sensible changes to clarify obligations around paid time for union delegates to undertake union activities. This included specifying when an employee is considered to be a union delegate. The committee also recommended clarifying that reasonable paid time is the equivalent rate they would receive while performing their normal employment duties. These clarifications ensure that rights and obligations for both employees and employers are clear under the provision. The bill restores an employee's right to a minimum number and duration of set rest and meal breaks. This will ensure employees have time to rest refresh and eat during working hours and to be able to continue to work safely. The committee recommended clarifying the bill to ensure that an employee with break requirements under the Act does not receive fewer breaks or breaks of lesser duration than under this bill. This ensures that at a minimum employees are entitled to prescribed breaks set out in the bill while allowing flexibility for other Acts to determine when and in what manner those breaks should be taken—for example the prescribed breaks that commercial drivers are currently required to take. The next recommendation relates to the vulnerable workers' provisions. These rules provide critical protection for vulnerable employees such as cleaners and caterers by allowing them to transfer their employment to an incoming employer when a contract that affects the work they are doing changes hands. The committee has recommended that the categories of work as listed in the Act that provide protection in the event of restructuring should be able to be added varied or removed by Order in Council. Allowing additional categories of workers to be added or removed by Order in Council will mean the provisions are responsive to changing work practices and conditions over time. This will ensure that vulnerable employees continue to be protected. By way of SOP I have also introduced a clarification to the duty to conclude a collective agreement under section 33 of the Act. The bill restores the settings relating to the conclusion of bargaining that applied prior to the National Government's changes in 2015. The challenge with these settings is that they do not make it sufficiently clear that employers are not required to settle a multi-employer collective agreement. With New Zealand First's support I propose an amendment to make it clear that an employer is not required to conclude a multi-employer collective agreement provided that the opposition to concluding is on reasonable grounds. Some submitters were concerned that the requirement to have pay ranges in collective agreements would not reflect what employees are actually paid. The committee has addressed this uncertainty and has recommended amending the bill to remove references to pay ranges and require that collective agreements must include either minimum or actual rates of wages or salary as well as an indication about how an employee's rates of wages or salary may progress during the term of the collective. This ensures that the pay rates that are included in collective agreements reflect what employees are actually earning and provide employees with an indication of how their pay will progress. I will now address the matter of union access. The most significant changes introduced by the SOP relate to this subject. The proposed changes create two categories of union access. For workplaces with a collective agreement in place or being negotiated where the coverage covers or would cover the work done by employees at the workplace union officials need not seek employer consent to visit their members. This arrangement was the status quo prior to National's 2010 changes. For workplaces without a collective agreement a union official must seek employer consent before entering the workplace. For these workplaces that is effectively the status quo under existing law. I propose also that non-union members should be permitted to request union assistance with health and safety matters. Union representatives often have valuable health and safety knowledge and expertise and it's important that all workers are kept safe. These changes negotiated with our coalition and confidence and supply partners strike a pragmatic balance between the rights of working people to freedom of association and the rights of employers to control access to their workplaces. For all access types the usual restrictions apply. A union representative must enter a workplace only at a reasonable time and in a reasonable way. The committee also heard submissions about the use of trial periods for small and medium sized enterprises. There were concerns that businesses larger than 20 employees would be disadvantaged for not being able to use trial periods. The committee considers that the case for trial periods is more powerful for smaller businesses as trial periods may reduce the risk taking when hiring. For larger employers trial periods are used less frequently and they have more sophisticated ways of managing the recruitment and performance of staff. To summarise this bill provides a minimum set of protections for all workers. These will deliver a better work-life balance and a healthier more productive workforce. It also provides a fairer framework in which collective bargaining can occur and finally it enables workers to make meaningful and informed decisions about whether they wish to join a union. I commend this bill to the House.