Bradford Sue: Employment Relations (Breaks and Infant Feeding) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Bradford Sue: Employment Relations (Breaks and Infant Feeding) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
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SUE BRADFORD (Green) 
: 
 I do not think it will come as a surprise to anyone here that the Green Party is delighted to be supporting this latest amendment to the Employment Relations Act. I was present at the Blackball Workingmen’s Club a couple of weeks ago along with some other MPs when the Hon Maryan Street announced these changes. It was very appropriately the occasion of the commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the 1908 miners’ strike which was in part about achieving the right to a half-hour rather than 15 minutes crib-time or lunch break. It is quite ironic that 100 years later in what one would usually imagine is the much more enlightened year of 2008 the Government feels obliged to put forward a law that aims to achieve exactly the same thing. 
This bill before us today amends the Employment Relations Act to make sure that all employees who work 4 hours or less get a 10-minute rest break employees who work between 4 and 6 hours get a 10-minute rest break and a half-hour meal break and if they are on the job for between 6 and 8 hours they are entitled to two 10-minute rest breaks and one 30-minute meal break. After 8 hours on the job it appears that the whole process starts again. 
I know that there are some people around this country who will question why on earth this law change is needed. There is a reasonably common perception out there that this is just common sense and that all employers are of course allowing their staff to take at least this minimum level of rest and meal breaks. However sadly this is not the case. Although 93 percent of collective agreements allow for such breaks there is actually nothing in law that makes it mandatory for them to be provided. A large percentage of the New Zealand workforce sadly remains non-unionised particularly in the private sector. Of course a lot of these non-unionised workers are not covered by collective agreements. Although I am sure the majority of employers including those whose workers have only individual contracts do in fact let their staff take at least these minimum break times some do not which is why this law is unfortunately necessary. 
The Green Party believes that when it comes to industrial relations matters it is the role of Government to prioritise above all the needs of those who are most vulnerable. We want to see minimum conditions applied to all workers including those who face the biggest disadvantages on the job—people like migrant part-time casual low-skilled and low-educated workers who are least able to bargain for themselves or perhaps to have ready access to union coverage. We are therefore pleased that this bill will provide these minimum breaks by law and see this as a long-overdue measure whose time has finally come. 
As Andrew Little from the New Zealand Amalgamated Engineering Printing and Manufacturing Union pointed out when the bill was first announced at the moment around 350000 workers are covered by collective agreements and about 1.7 million workers are not. It is those among the 1.7 million who are missing out on a fair go in the workplace who will benefit from the protection that this new law will provide—and it is about time too. 
The second major purpose of this bill is the requirement that employers provide appropriate facilities and breaks for staff who wish to breastfeed or express breast milk as far as is reasonable and practicable in the particular circumstances pertaining to that workplace. I am really pleased to hear parties like National and New Zealand First supporting this provision—or at least tentatively supporting in National’s case. Again the Green Party welcomes this proposal as part of its overall commitment to furthering breastfeeding as a key component of best health outcomes both for babies and for their mothers. With so many mothers now part of our regular workforce it is critical that we do everything we can to support their ability to keep breastfeeding once they are back at work after having a baby or babies. I say “babies” because there are a lot of mothers these days who have twins. As a mother of twins myself I can say that trying to breastfeed twins and go back to work is even more difficult than going back to work after having one baby. 
The World Health Organization advocates support for breastfeeding including encouraging Governments to put in place laws that safeguard the rights of working mothers to breastfeed. This is backed by ILO Convention 183 on maternity protection which states that women should have the right not only to take one or more breaks during the working day to feed their infant but also that these breaks should count as time worked. Although the bill allows for paid breastfeeding breaks if employer and employee agree the bill itself does not provide a right to this. I imagine that submissions in favour of the latter will be heard during the select committee process. The Green Party will certainly support any amendment or improvement that can be achieved in this area. 
The other part of the bill that relates to breastfeeding in effect requires employers where they reasonably can to make sure that appropriate facilities are available for breastfeeding mothers. This may sound ridiculously onerous to some but in fact the evaluation of parental leave carried out in 2005-06 found that space for breastfeeding was actually offered by 69 percent of small employers—remarkably—and 41 percent of large employers. Given that there is already such substantial practical implementation and support for this and that our larger employers are in fact those surely most able to afford to supply even a small space for affected employees I cannot see that there should be too much opposition to this provision even from the most traditionally hard-hearted of employer organisations. 
There has been some comment in the media that at a time when the economy is slowing and we begin to face up to the possibility of a recession at some point in the nearish future the Government should not be further regulating the workplace in regard to things like the requirement for minimum breaks and access to breastfeeding facilities where practicable. This is the old argument that in hard times we need greater labour market flexibility and fewer universal protections. Well in fact the Green Party argues the reverse. This time of comparative prosperity in which we are also all I think recognising the possibility of a looming downturn is exactly the time when we should be maximising protections like those before us today.