Roche Denise: Employment Relations Amendment Bill — Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeRoche Denise: Employment Relations Amendment Bill — Third Reading[Sitting date: 30 October 2014. Volume:701;Page:446. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]DENISE ROCHE (Green):I am deeply saddened to be speaking on this the third and final reading of the Employment Relations Amendment Bill today. It is disappointing that this Government has let old and outdated ideology dictate its legislative agenda. But perhaps it is not so surprising that this is the first piece of legislation in this term of Government when over the last two terms what we have seen is this Government consistently applying its policy directions towards the rich and the powerful—oil companies property developers Skycity Casino—to keep them rich and powerful.In this case the lobbyists include cleaning companies like CrestClean a franchise company that over the last 6 years has harangued MPs with its request that the Government change the law to ensure that some of the lowest-paid workers in this country lose their ability to maintain the small bit of job security that they have when a cleaning contract swaps over to another contractor. This is the business that sought to undermine the Building Service Contractors of New Zealand Inc. through its hired gun lobbyists and its blogger mates outlined in Nicky Hager’s Dirty Politics book.During the submission process of the bill last year I vividly recall the oral evidence from parliamentary cleaner Mareta Sinoti. She spoke to the 2000 or so written submissions that were presented to Parliament by the Service and Food Workers Union cleaners—cleaners from throughout the country. She spoke to their submissions. All of those submissions asked the Government to back off on the removal of Part 6A of the Act the part that deals with the security for vulnerable workers like cleaners. Mareta was very thoughtful. Her submission was incredibly heartfelt. I do not think I was the only one who had tears in their eyes as she essentially begged the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee not to remove Part 6A. She talked about how as a parliamentary cleaner her job had been restructured several times and although she kept her job her hours had frequently been reduced and she had to do more work for less income in total. But she also said that she was proud to work for Parliament.Mareta Sinoti is the worker who was insulted by a National Party member of Parliament who suggested that if she did not like the job it should go to someone else who wanted it. She earns less than $15 an hour for the privilege of cleaning up after us. I guess it was this offensive remark from the Hon Tau Henare that epitomises the hard-nosed approach that this Government wants to introduce into the employment relations environment in New Zealand. The Government says it wants flexibility but in a labour market with a high unemployment rate flexibility essentially vastly weakens workers’ rights which turns into low wages and as others have said a race to the bottom where the cheapest workers get the jobs.To prepare for this reading I went back and reviewed some of the 15000 or so submissions to this bill. The vast majority of them were from people like teachers nurses caregivers dairy workers engineers and many more. I want to thank them for participating in this democratic process. It is a darn shame that the Government has not taken on board any of their suggestions. I also looked at the advice that was provided around specific changes to the bill. I looked at the regulatory impact statement. This is what it says in a column that measures the choice and flexibility against some of the changes to collective bargaining provisions. The proposal to repeal the 30-day rule for new employees would increase flexibility and choice for employers. The proposal to allow an employer to opt out of multi-employer bargaining with 40 days’ notice of initiation would increase flexibility and choice for employers but decrease it for employees who want a multi-employer collective agreement. The introduction of partial pay deductions for partial strike action would increase choice for employers. But it also says here that this might see some new forms of action and it could lead to an increase in intensity of partial strike action and a number of complete strikes. The provision to amend the time frames for bargaining initiatives increases choice and flexibility for the employer; it decreases choice and flexibility for workers in their trade unions.The object of the original Employment Relations Act 2000 is “(a) to build productive employment relationships through the promotion of good faith in all aspects of the employment environment and of the employment relationship—(i) by recognising that employment relationships must be built not only on the implied mutual obligations of trust and confidence but also on a legislative requirement for good faith behaviour; and (ii) by acknowledging and addressing the inherent inequality of power in employment relationships; and (iii) by promoting collective bargaining;”. It goes on in section 3(b) to say: “to promote observance in New Zealand of the principles underlying International Labour Organisation Convention 87 on Freedom of Association and Convention 98 on the Right to Organise and Bargain Collectively.”The Government’s changes absolutely undermine everything in these objectives. Regardless of whatever weaselly way the Government wants to spin things it takes away the obligation for employers to act in good faith towards their employees. This bill is not only unprecedented; it is unwarranted. I have seen no compelling evidence that collective employment negotiations are bad for the economy or that workers are holding the country to ransom through unreasonable demands. The amount of industrial unrest in this country has declined in recent years—an average of fewer than a dozen stoppages a year over the last several years. The most notable recent full-on disputes were the Ports of Auckland and the Maritime Union of New Zealand workers and the meatworkers at Talley’s AFFCO and even the current bank workers dispute with ANZ. They have not been about demands for massive pay increases. They have been about holding on to their job security and opposing casualisation of the workforce and the demands that their employers have made for them to do that. In the case of Ports of Auckland and Talley’s the employers went so far as to use industrial action themselves through lockouts to try to force those workers into making agreements around that. They were locked out for weeks at a time. Although the Government says that it wants to reduce the costs associated with collective bargaining this appears to be a fallacy. Multi-employer collective employment agreements reduce costs for employers. They are a more efficient use of employers’ resources because of economies of scale.The Government stated in the opening address from the Governor-General last week that one of its priorities for this term was to enact and enforce good workplace health and safety. Given that there were nearly 183000 workplace injuries recorded by ACC in the last financial year and workers in farming forestry and fishing have a one-in-four chance of being injured at work—and that is not even factoring in the shocking number of deaths in these industries and in our ports I might add—I absolutely applaud those aims of the Government. But the changes in this legislation will not help with good health and safety practices. The bill creates an environment where New Zealand workers will be discouraged from speaking up about any of the health and safety risks on the job. They will not even have the simple right of a tea break during their work shift. We know that in many high-risk industries—like forestry for example—fatigue is a major contributor to accidents and injuries on the job. We know too that health and safety is a culture that needs to be created on the job and that means workers need to speak up. We can see that difference in the exemplary health and safety record of the Huntly mine which is highly unionised—compared with the tragedy that was the Pike River mine.As a Parliament we should do our best to provide legislation that supports and protects our citizens. I stand with the hundreds of thousands of workers in Aotearoa New Zealand who need legislation that protects their rights at work. Please oppose this bill.