Cunliffe David: Employment Standards Legislation Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeCunliffe David: Employment Standards Legislation Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 08 March 2016. Volume:711;Page:9492. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE (Labour—New Lynn): I appreciate this opportunity to take a brief call on the stuff that is at the heart of this Employment Standards Legislation Bill and that is the stuff on zero-hour contracts. I want to reflect on the changes that have been achieved: firstly what they are why they are bad news and how this bill as amended seeks to make sure that they never darken the doors of our employment relations again. It is well known I think by people out there that zero-hour contracts are iniquitous because they are unbalanced. The employer can require an employee to be available at any time and the employee has no guaranteed hours of work and that is a completely unsatisfactory state of affairs. It reduces the employee to the stuff of an object and that is not OK in this country.One little example on the boundary of my electorate is Kelston Girls’ College which tells me on this International Women’s Day that its absenteeism has gone through the roof because of casualisation of labour meaning that parents cannot plan their household stuff so children are required to stay home to look after the elderly. Casualisation is bad enough; zero-hour contracts make that even worse by making it a completely unbalanced employment relationship.I want to acknowledge Iain Lees-Galloway and the Labour team that have worked constructively with other parties on this bill. I think it is no secret that the stuff that is at the heart of this is the fact that the Government has moved because it had to because minor parties came to our position which was very clear: that the original draft of this bill did not deliver on the Government’s stated commitment to outlaw zero-hour contracts. We will not actually know until the third reading—the end of the Committee stage—whether in fact the fine print measures up but we will be watching like hawks.In particular there are three things that we are concerned about: firstly we want to remove the ability of employers to put people on contracts where they are on call with no permanent hours. Being on call can be fine in some contexts provided people are fairly remunerated and the stuff that goes with that. Secondly employers should not be able to cancel shifts at the last minute. The idea that an employer can simply cancel a shift when they like should not be normalised in law. Thirdly where practical hours of work should be included in the stuff of employment agreements so that people can plan their lives with some security. Zero-hour contracts are an unmitigated disaster.This set of changes that has been negotiated by my good colleague Iain Lees-Galloway centres on new section 67E inserted by clause 87—the availability clause. The clause when amended by Supplementary Order Paper 155 will end zero-hour contracts. The amendment is absolutely vital because it changes the bill from being one that entrenches the ability to write zero-hour contracts to one that effectively outlaws them—and we hope for good.That means that an employer can no longer demand that the employee be available all the time without giving them guaranteed hours of work and what is really important—and it will need to be tested in the courts we recognise that—is that there are provisions for the reasonable stuff of compensation to be paid when somebody is required to work. Secondly it means that the employer must have a good reason for requiring the employee to be available for work in the first place. That cannot be to the point of changing shifts at the last moment without paying reasonable compensation. The notice period for changes or cancellation of shifts must also be reasonable—an objective test in the courts—and crucially must be included in the employment agreement. So it is now much clearer in the law that having agreed hours in an employment agreement is an expectation that will be upheld by the courts.There are other clauses that contain vital stuff for this bill records relating to minimum entitlements in clause 84 “4B Employer’s general obligation to keep records relating to minimum entitlement provisions”. The employer has an active obligation to keep records and stuff that allow and require those records to be bona fide to be categorical and to be on the record so that there is nowhere for the employer to hide. It reminds me of one time when I was holding the immigration portfolio and we were looking at people rorting the system with foreign fishing crews and somebody’s employment records were on a computer that just happened to jump overboard off the ship.