Bradford Sue: Employment Relations Law Reform Bill — In Committee 
Bradford Sue: Employment Relations Law Reform Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:620;Page:16139] 
SUE BRADFORD (Green) 
: 
 The Green Party has three amendments it would like to make to this part of the bill. They are on the Table if anyone is interested. The first and to us the most significant of these amendments is a proposed change to the schedules in relation to the categories of workers who can receive protection when their jobs are restructured or sold out from under them—the old transfer of undertakings clause. 
The Green Party is supporting the Service and Food Workers Union in calling for caregivers in residential care facilities to be added to that list of workers who will get protection once the bill is passed. I can think of no earthly reason why caregivers in rest homes were omitted from the list in the first place as they are surely one of the most exploited and vulnerable groups in the country. I do not think there would be many employers or even politicians in the Chamber here tonight who could disagree with this. These workers earn mainly between $9 and $12 an hour and many of them are actually on the bare minimum wage of $9 or just over it. The work they do is physically and mentally demanding. Many of the workers are older women who are really risking their health and welfare doing this work at pitifully low wages. 
 Rest homes change ownership often so they fit right into the category of the other kinds of vulnerable workers that we are talking about in relation to this bill. When the business is sold these hard-pressed low-paid but essential workers are at risk of losing not only their jobs but also all their service-based entitlements such as additional holidays if they have worked there long enough. I know that the Government is reluctant to add any group of workers at all into the coverage at this stage but the Green Party believes strongly that Labour could and should make an exception just for this one group of workers—caregivers in rest homes. If that is not possible I would urge the Minister and the department to do everything they can to assist the service workers union and other unions involved with the process for getting caregivers added to the schedules as soon as possible. 
The second amendment that we are putting up tonight is to clause 30. We would like to see it changed to allow all employees who transfer to a new employer the right to bargain for redundancy entitlements. This is again in the section dealing with the transfer of undertakings. Unfortunately the bill as drafted excludes vulnerable workers from bargaining for redundancy if they have an employment agreement that expressly excludes redundancy entitlement. The Green Party believes that the bill provides a strong incentive for employers to put in a redundancy exclusion—not a desirable outcome at all—and I doubt that the Government intended that. We need to remember that these clauses relate to some of the most vulnerable groups of workers in the country who are prey to having their jobs and conditions changed. We should be doing everything we can with this bill to protect them. I call on Labour members to reconsider their position on this rather minor amendment and support the rights of these workers. 
Our third amendment is to do with new section 4A inserted by clause 6A. Although we are pleased that the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee strengthened this section we would like the Committee and in particular Labour and New Zealand First to consider one further minor change. The current bill states that employers are liable for penalties only where the breach of good faith was “deliberate serious and sustained”—all those things must be met. The Green Party believes there are circumstances where a breach may be so serious that it requires a penalty. We want new section 4A to provide that the action is “serious or sustained” so that either can apply. It could be that the action was minor but sustained over a long period of time thereby eroding good faith and confidence in collective bargaining. The change we propose would allow the Employment Relations Authority to consider penalties in these kinds of situations but they will not be mandatory. I call on the Government to consider supporting this very minor amendment. 
Finally I would just like to turn quickly to the question of bargaining fees. The Green Party does support the Government’s Supplementary Order Paper on bargaining fees and sees it as a very minor addition to the bill unlike the Opposition parties. This is not setting up the American system of closed shops at all as Mr Prebble said last night. All it does is allow workers and employers to negotiate an agreement that includes an arrangement for bargaining fees. It is simply just the right to have it—it can be by negotiation only; it is not something that can be imposed at all. It is something that can be done only after a vote in the workplace.