Fenton Darien: Employment Relations (Secret Ballot for Strikes) Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Fenton Darien: Employment Relations (Secret Ballot for Strikes) Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
[Sitting date: 09 May 2012. Volume:679;Page:2101. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
DARIEN FENTON (Labour) 
: 
 What a glorious finale to a long process of a bill the Employment Relations (Secret Ballot for Strikes) Amendment Bill that was never needed. It is a bill that was never needed and a problem that never existed except in the member Tau Henare’s mind except in his experience of 30 years ago when he was a union organiser with the Clerical Workers Union and except in his mind as to what things used to be like when he was in fact the worst union organiser in New Zealand history. I doubt if he has been near a union since the time in the 1990s when he sold out and changed sides. Ever since then he has been standing up for the National Party and the National Party’s attacks on workers. He has never voted against them. He has never spoken against them. 
Here he is saying this is a pro-worker pro-union freedom bill—freedom to choose. Well I have got news for the member. Workers do have freedom of choice. They have freedom to join a union or not join a union. They have freedom to strike or not strike. They are not coerced. They are not marched out the door with their arms behind their backs and made to strike. They do have freedom.  
They do have democracy even though the member is trying to insert democracy into unions. It already exists. Most unions already have secret ballots. If he had bothered to read a few unions’ rules he would see that most unions already have provisions that allow members to call for a secret ballot and they do. It is not a problem. But what he has done is create a problem.  
The unions will comply with this bill. They comply with the law so of course they will. They will have to go through the expensive and unnecessary process and compliance cost of changing their rules. We had this discussion during the debate and during the select committee process. The unions cannot just get a piece of paper change their rules and send it off to the incorporated societies’ office. They actually have to go through a democratic process. They have to meet their members. They have to vote on the rule changes. This takes some time. In my old union we used to do something like 60 or 70 meetings all around New Zealand to change the rules. That is the process that is required and that is the process that this bill will put the unions through at a time when there are far more important things to be worrying about. 
The unions will do the job but the people who will not cope are their members. The people who are not coping at the moment are union members—the members who are already struggling to get a decent pay increase and a fair deal at work. I was interested to hear the member Tau Henare give a message to Talley’s AFFCO—which was a little bit better than his Minister was prepared to do today. Talley’s AFFCO has actually locked out those workers. They are now in their third month of being locked out. I am sure those workers would have liked to see some democracy in action from Talley’s with the board of Talley’s actually voting on whether those workers should be locked out. On the one hand the Government wants workers to have to vote for a strike but shareholders do not have to. So as always in the employment relationship we have yet more imbalance.  
It is the old view that workers should not have a voice. The view that we see increasingly from this Government is that workers should just shut up and be grateful to have a job. What is major and really upsetting at the moment is the most toxic industrial relations environment we have seen in two decades. I have mentioned the AFFCO workers. We have seen rest home workers having to go on strike—workers on $13.65 an hour. Those people are having to get out in the street and the people they care for the older residents they care for go out with them. And of course we have the ongoing Ports of Auckland dispute with some of the most incompetent management I have ever seen in my time being involved in industrial relations. 
If Tau Henare had bothered to go and talk to any of the AFFCO workers on the picket line in Moerewa in Wiri in Horotiu in Imlay in Feilding in Wairoa—in these poor communities—they would have said: “This isn’t an important thing for us. This doesn’t matter to us. What matters to us is that we can go back to work and earn a living and be treated fairly at work.” But instead that is not going to happen.  
I want to mention that this bill comes at a time when this Government is planning to bring in some new industrial laws. One—another ridiculous proposal—is to fine workers for partial strikes. A partial strike for example is the old work to rule. For example workers could decide they are not going to answer the telephone during their meal breaks and rest breaks. I mean that happens. They are often expected to do far more than they actually get paid for. What this Government is going to do is have this ridiculous process now where first of all the workers have to be balloted as to whether they are going to have a partial strike—in other words refuse to answer the telephone. Then under the Government’s proposal the unions are going to have to give written notice of the strike. They do not have to give notice at the moment. They are going to have to give written notice regardless of whether they are an essential industry or not. And that in itself can become the subject of an Employment Court or authority hearing—the notice and whether it was right or wrong—as indeed the strike ballots can. The notice will have to provide the employer with all the details about how much time those workers spend answering the phone during their tea breaks and the employer is going to have to calculate how much money that costs every day. They will have to identify that and notify the workers and then they will have to work out what proportion of the workers’ day it is so that they can cut the workers’ pay because it is called a partial strike. And even if the workers are completing all of their hours they can be paid less than the minimum wage under this proposal. 
This proposal is so ridiculous. The Government is planning to change three pieces of legislation all to stop another problem that does not exist a problem like the one the member has tried to address—one that does not exist in the first place. This is a problem about so-called partial strikes. There have been five on average every year for the last 20 years. What we have got is a problem that does not exist. Someone has said to the Minister or to the Government “Oh we had a bit of a problem because they refused to answer the telephone and we couldn’t cut their pay.” So now we are going to spend a whole lot of time a whole lot of Parliament’s time bringing in a new provision that will further restrict the right to strike. 
It has got nothing to do with democracy. It has got nothing to do with workers’ rights. It has got nothing to do with workers getting better pay and better wages. It has got nothing to do with catching up with Australia or any of those other things that the Government has said it wants to do. It has got nothing to do with democracy because as I said if it was about democracy the member would have accepted my amendment to require shareholders to hold a ballot where there is a lockout. He would have accepted my amendment—my very sensible amendment—that instead of having a whole bill we just have a requirement that the unions have a provision in their rules. That would have stopped this stupid bill for an unnecessary problem.  
What this bill is really about is reducing unionism and collective bargaining in New Zealand. That is the agenda of this Government. That is the agenda of this Government— 
Hon Tau Henare 
: Nobody believes it! 
DARIEN FENTON 
: That is your manifesto. Why does the member not read his manifesto and see what his Government is planning to do?  
I am afraid that even if Tau Henare had gone and visited the Talley’s AFFCO workers I doubt he would have listened. What is happening to them is indefensible just like this bill—this is not defensible. It is going to make life tougher for unions and workers. When you combine it with the Government’s plans to weaken collective bargaining to weaken the unions and to cut people’s pay it is going to be a disaster.  
Hon Tau Henare 
: Rubbish! Nothing to do with it. 
DARIEN FENTON 
: Well I encourage the member to please go and see the Talley’s AFFCO workers. You will find that what they are concerned about is feeding their families. It is poor communities and poor workers who are supporting them at the moment. Their families are living on $30 a week. Guess who is providing the money? It is other workers who— 
Hon Tau Henare 
: What are the meatworkers doing then? 
DARIEN FENTON 
: The meatworkers union members are providing the money. The Council of Trade Unions and the officials are providing the money as well. So instead of arguing go and talk to some real workers Mr Tau Henare and find out what the real life of workers and unions is all about today.