Lees-Galloway Iain: Employment Standards Legislation Bill — Second ReadingText is subject to correctionLees-Galloway Iain: Employment Standards Legislation Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 03 March 2016. Volume:711;Page:9395. Text is subject to correction.]IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Labour—Palmerston North): Let me be absolutely clear. Labour does not support this bill in its current form. As it was reported back from the select committee we felt that far from eliminating zero-hour contracts from the law it in fact entrenches them in the law. That was our view at first reading. We were prepared to take the bill to the select committee to try to work through that. Despite our best efforts and despite the fantastic submissions that we received from a variety of submitters representing both workers and employers we were not able to get the National Party MPs on the select committee to support our amendments that would eliminate zero-hour contracts rather than entrench them in the law. When the bill was reported back from the select committee we announced publicly that we were withdrawing our support for it. We do not believe that it gets rid of zero-hour contracts. In fact we believe it entrenches zero-hour contracts. Nothing has changed so far.What has changed is that the Minister has reached out to us—I suspect because he needs to make sure he has the numbers to pass this bill. The minor parties certainly were alert to the issues that we had raised around the legislation. I would like to thank Marama Fox in particular for the open line of communication that she allowed between myself and the Māori Party. I would like to thank Peter Dunne for noticing when we came out so hard against the bill when it was reported back from the select committee. We have been in discussions with the Minister and I thank the Minister for approaching us and being prepared to discuss the issues that we have with this legislation.So in good faith—because we on this side of the House believe in negotiating in good faith—we will support the second reading of the bill. Nobody should interpret that as Labour intending to support the bill through its remaining stages until we have seen the proposals. We have not yet seen the final proposals. We have certainly seen some indication about where the Minister wants to go. We are happy with the direction that the Minister has indicated he wants to go but we have not seen the final proposals. So until we see the final proposals we cannot commit to supporting this bill through its final stages.We will not support a bill that entrenches zero-hour contracts in the law. We will support a bill that eliminates zero-hour contracts completely and for good. Unfortunately as the Minister says we do not have a clause in the Employment Relations Act that says: “This is what a zero-hour contract is:”. Zero-hour contracts are the result of employers using a variety of loopholes in our legislation so what we need to do is close down those loopholes. I know it sounds unlikely to many people that a bill that we say currently entrenches zero-hour contracts could with some changes in fact eliminate zero-hour contracts but that is what we are dealing with. This bill with changes can eliminate zero-hour contracts and if we make those changes and those changes meet our satisfaction for the test of eliminating zero-hour contracts only then can we support the legislation.So what do we need to see? We want to remove the ability for employers to put people on contracts where they are on call with no permanent hours. Being on call can be fine in some contexts where being on call is in addition to regular hours at work. But sitting at home on call waiting for work and being required to come to work when that phone call comes and therefore not being able to get on with your life not being able to engage in other activities like joining a sports club or going and seeing your kids play at school or indeed picking up other work for another employer—that is a zero-hour contract and that is the situation that the legislation as currently drafted allows for.Secondly employers should not be able to cancel shifts at the last minute. The idea that employers can simply cancel shifts when they like should not be normalised in the legislation. We are concerned right now that the legislation is not strong enough on this matter. It does allow for last-minute cancellations and in fact if anything it suggests that cancellation of shifts should be normalised and that cancellation clauses should go into every employment agreement and we do not agree with that. We need that to be changed. Thirdly where practicable hours of work should be included in an employment agreement so that people can plan their lives and have income security.Those are our bottom lines; this is not a matter for compromise. Those are the changes we need to see in order to continue supporting this legislation. No halfway houses no watering down—we get those changes or our support for this legislation ceases. Zero-hour contracts are amongst the most exploitative forms of employment agreement in New Zealand right now and our law allows for them. What we should not be doing is entrenching them in the law. We should be getting rid of them. We should be giving people the opportunity to have a steady income where they know how many hours of work they are going to have from one week to the next. We should be giving people the opportunity to have a life outside of work—to join a sports team to join a cultural club to volunteer for their favourite charity to go and see their kids play sport to be in a play or to go along to their kids’ assembly. Those are the things that New Zealanders take for granted as being part of living in New Zealand. It is part of being a New Zealander. It is part of the freedoms that we ought to enjoy.But for too many people that is not real life because life is dictated by work. They are literally sitting at home waiting for the phone call and when the phone call comes they have no choice. They have got to go to work. That is what a zero-hour contract is and that is why we want to get rid of them. It is not necessarily to do with having a perfectly constructed law. It is about people being able to lead a decent life with a reasonable income and the ability to do the things that we all ought to be able to take for granted.We could on this side of the House simply say “Sorry National we’re not going to deal with you. Your record on workers’ rights is appalling.”—and sorry chaps and ladies but it is. But we are prepared to get this right for working people. We owe it to working New Zealanders to take this opportunity to get rid of zero-hour contracts. Yes it has come about because of the MMP Parliament that we have. This Parliament is finely balanced and yes we do work with the Māori Party and yes we do reach out to Peter Dunne and with a strong foundation of Labour the Greens and New Zealand First taking a firm position against zero-hour contracts we were able to build the coalition on this. That is how we are doing this—with hard work behind the scenes to ensure that this Parliament by majority wishes to eliminate zero-hour contracts. The Government has realised it needs to be on board with that and we welcome that.So today we will vote for this bill. Next week we will propose changes and I have no doubt that the Government will propose changes. If the mixture of the changes that are adopted by this House are sufficient to meet our bottom lines we will support this bill. If they are not we will not and if they are not sufficient to meet our bottom lines I implore the Government’s support parties not to cave in not to accept something that is watered down and not to accept a compromise but to support our view and that is this: it is time to eliminate zero-hour contracts from New Zealand. We support this bill at this stage. We look forward to the hard work next week and we look forward to being able to celebrate on behalf of working people next week that zero-hour contracts are gone for good.