Rich Katherine: Employment Relations Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Rich Katherine: Employment Relations Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:633;Page:5084] 
KATHERINE RICH (National) 
: 
 I rise to speak to clause 1 the title in our discussion of the Employment Relations Amendment Bill. When we look at the words “employment relations” and think about them we know that the relationship we have with our employers is among some of the most important relationships we have in our lives. But this bill single-handedly makes it easier for an employer to get out of the Mafia than to move on and change an employment relationship with a staff member. 
I would like to remind members in the Chamber of the reasons we are here debating this bill. It results from the case of a Dunedin firm actually Crest Commercial Cleaning Ltd which was taken to court because it wanted to take on a cleaning contract for the Dunedin Kindergarten Association. That association had loyally stood by a number of cleaning staff members for some years but over a period of time the standard of cleaning had become so appalling that the association felt that the health of the children who attended those kindergartens was at risk. It complained that some of those kindergartens were left in an unsanitary situation so in certain circumstances the association was almost at the point of having to close those kindergartens because the cleaning was so bad. 
But on the issue of employment relations the Government is telling New Zealanders that the relationship is of greater importance than the standard of the work. The Government is saying that for a kindergarten to have such substandard cleaning is OK and that the employment relationship is far more important. Crest Commercial Cleaning wanted to take over the contract after that contract had been terminated. The kindergarten association did not break the contract; it waited loyally until the end of that contract. The association thought it was fine and hired a new company. The new company came in took over but—hello—the staff members took it to court backed by the union movement. 
This is telling Kiwis that it is OK for people not to do their work well and to put other New Zealanders’ health at risk yet still they will keep their jobs. If we look at the cleaning business we see that about 90 percent of what is important in that business is the standard of work done by individuals. If the individual cannot work well then the Government is saying that that is OK—that that is not the important point there. Under this new legislation a cleaner could be the worst cleaner in the world the worst staff member in the world but still have what equates to a fixed employee/employer relationship. The Dunedin Kindergarten Association did not want to be in a position where it hired staff members; that is why it got contractors in. And it was a total shock to the association to find itself in the situation where effectively it was the employer of those cleaners. 
The Government wants to paint a picture that this bill is all about vulnerable workers and if we look at the rhetoric around it we can see that it is basically a whole bunch of euphemisms. It talks about vulnerable workers and about restructuring when in fact we are looking at ending fixed-term contracts and moving on to new business. 
If the Government were really serious about employment relationships it would be thinking about the mums and dads who run those cleaning franchises. The Government wants to give the impression that this is all about big nasty corporate cleaning companies. Well it is not. The average value of a cleaning contract in this country is around $8000 and mums and dads take on franchise opportunities earning only $20 an hour if they are working for themselves. They have independent businesses. They go out and get those small contracts and use that work to put bread and butter on their own family’s table. This bill effectively makes them responsible for somebody else’s staff. 
If the aim is to retain the positions of those staff members who do not have work as a result of a contract then they should be allowed to stay with the companies involved. That would make sense. If the Government is serious about employment relationships then why does it not keep the employment relationship between the staff member and the initial employer? Why force that staff member to be taken on by a company the staff member does not know and why should a firm take on staff it does not know if the quality of service is to be maintained? Lianne Dalziel gave us a lecture about business compliance costs; this bill adds the biggest compliance cost for those businesses.