Kedgley Sue: General Debate 
Kedgley Sue: General Debate 
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SUE KEDGLEY (Green) 
: 
 The Green Party strongly supports the Fairness at Work day of action and the hundreds to thousands of workers who took part in rallies right around New Zealand. For these workers there has been no good news—as the previous speaker Craig Foss said—only bad news. They have witnessed a sustained and deliberate attempt by the Government to undermine and weaken unions to chip away at workers’ rights and to tilt the playing field in favour of employers. They have witnessed a sustained attack on workers’ rights: putting restrictions on the access of workers to union advice and support the totally absurd and unreasonable proposal that workers provide a sick note after 1 day’s absence and the fire-at-will provisions which will allow workers to be fired from their jobs without being given any reason. 
All that these workers are demanding is fairness in the workplace and to be given basic protections such as the right to appeal against unfair dismissal in the first 90 days of employment. How well I remember the front-page article in the  
Dominion Post  
about a woman with an unblemished employment record who left a well-paying job so that she could go to her dream job at Dunbar Sloane’s auction house. She worked like a galley slave for 2 weeks and then received a letter saying that she had been fired summarily with no explanation. That is what the workers were protesting about today. 
I will illustrate the unfairness of the working conditions of so many New Zealand workers by looking at aged-care workers. I have been talking to them all around New Zealand as part of the 3-month Green and Labour Party investigation into aged care. Aged-care workers provide more than 90 percent of the care in the aged-care sector. They look after some of the oldest most frail and vulnerable New Zealanders who have increasingly complex health needs yet the average wage for caregivers is $14.40 an hour. Many are on the minimum wage even after working for an employer for 10 years or more. That is grossly unfair. 
The vast majority of caregivers are paid no overtime no double time and not even time and a half when they have to work at weekends and at night. That is grossly unfair. Caregivers doing exactly the same sort of work in public hospitals are paid double time when they work weekends and nights but the majority of caregivers have no penal rates at all. One employer Oceania Group which has agreed to some minimum penal rates nevertheless requires workers to sign a document stating that if they work additional hours to the ones they are rostered on to they must agree to be paid at ordinary rates and not get any overtime. That is grossly unfair. 
There are no minimum staff to patient ratios in aged care and the sector is so short-staffed that most aged-care workers are grossly overworked. Many look after 30 to 40 residents on their own on a shift. Many have to do clinical work that should be the domain of other workers such as giving out complex medication such as morphine yet they are paid a pittance. 
Caregivers told us that they dread working the weekend shift because of the dangerous lack of staff. Some said the only way to care for residents safely in the weekends is to leave them in bed all weekend. 
There are no minimum requirements for staff training for caregivers; only about 20 percent of the workforce has any training or qualifications. Many start work with no experience of working with older New Zealanders and the only training they get is a quick walk around with the nurse. If they want to get training most have to pay for it themselves which is grossly unfair. They are seldom given any additional pay for the increased qualifications or experience that they accumulate which is also grossly unfair. 
We heard many shocking stories of abuse and neglect but many of them were caused really by the shortage of staff in the sector. We were told about residents who become incontinent because there literally are not enough staff on duty to toilet residents regularly. That is shocking. We were told of residents who lose their mobility because there are not enough staff to walk them regularly. That is shocking. We were told that many residents get left in front of the television all day or in bed all weekend because there are no staff to care for them properly. Many are put on antipsychotic medication to sedate them and make them more manageable.