Locke Keith: Employment Relations (Statutory Minimum Redundancy Entitlements) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Locke Keith: Employment Relations (Statutory Minimum Redundancy Entitlements) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
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KEITH LOCKE (Green) 
: 
 The Green Party will be strongly supporting the Employment Relations (Statutory Minimum Redundancy Entitlements) Amendment Bill. If it is passed—and I hope it is—it will correct a major injustice for workers in this country: being laid off without any redundancy. I think that David Bennett conceded there was a problem but he said that under this legislation employers would stick to the minimum rather than giving more than that to workers in redundancy. However the current problem is not that employers may stick to a legislative minimum which does not exist; the problem is that they do not give any redundancy at all in many cases. 
We have a recent statement from the National Distribution Union referring to a dozen workers who were laid off by T A Macalister Ltd without any redundancy at all because of a downturn in business. Warehouse supervisor Rob Highsted who was laid off said: “I feel bitter”. “The warehouse in this company has been my baby - I was proud at how well I made it work then they just say ‘piss off.’ Its 20 years of my life down the toilet.” Mr Highsted said another couple with 40 years’ service between them had also been shown the door without so much as a thankyou from the company. 
That is the problem that we face and that is why it is important to have a minimum of 4 weeks’ notice 4 weeks’ remuneration after 1 year and 2 weeks’ additional remuneration for each subsequent year of continuous employment up to a maximum entitlement of 26 weeks’ remuneration. That is consistent both with longstanding Green Party policy and as has been pointed out with the report of the Public Advisory Group to the Minister of Labour on Restructuring and Redundancy. 
I will tell members why we have redundancy. One point is that it is a recognition by the employer who has benefited from the labour of workers—often over many years as in the case I mentioned—of the value of that work. It says “Here have something because unfortunately we have to make you redundant.” Secondly it is to reduce the suffering that workers face when they are laid off. The unemployment benefit is not in itself sufficient and there is a qualifying period for it as well. That is particularly important now when couples who work are mortgaged up to the hilt. If one person in the relationship loses his or her job they cannot afford to pay the mortgage the house goes down the tube—all kinds of things happen. There is huge suffering if people do not have any continuity of income while they look for another job. The third point is that it gives a breathing space to find another job—not just another job but a job in one’s specialist area if at all possible. It gives someone the time to look around to find an appropriate job. Often the problem is that workers are very highly specialised. They are geared to one job and it takes a while either to train for something else or to look around for something that is the equivalent of what they were doing. 
I myself was made redundant when I was working at the Gear meatworks in 1981 and it closed down. We got some redundancy pay but I know that it was very difficult for many of the workers there who were highly specialised knife hands and who had spent decades working as knife hands. Many of them became very depressed and their families became depressed because they did not have other work in their specialist area. 
That relates to another issue raised in the public advisory group’s report: the need to give plenty of notice of the termination of employment. In this bill 4 weeks’ notice of redundancy is required but there is also the need to look a bit further out. If something is happening to an industry if a change is going on and there might be redundancies there is a need to have a whole transition to new employment. That is why it is important to have adult education and not to cut night classes which are often a way for people to make the transition to a new job. Unfortunately this Government has cut night classes. 
We want to be able to ratify ILO Convention 158 and it is important that we pass measures like this so that we can do that. We do not want to be in breach of international conventions. 
The question is not that somehow workers will suffer through redundancy payments undermining full-time employment as David Bennett claims. In fact I think redundancy provisions are a deterrent against employers laying people off; it adds a bit of restraint which is good. The idea that redundancy provisions somehow stop employers from employing people is a bit silly too. How many employers think that in 3 years they might have to lay off employees and pay them 8 weeks’ redundancy so therefore they will not employ them? That is not the way things would play out.