Logie Jan: Employment Relations Amendment Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeLogie Jan: Employment Relations Amendment Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 05 June 2013. Volume:690;Page:10789. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]JAN LOGIE (Green): I rise to speak on this Employment Relations Amendment Bill asking the question of who will benefit from this law and also how consistent it is with the Government’s agenda to increase productivity. My position and my belief is that this bill will benefit very few people and only in the short term; it will make things much worse for many many more people; and it will not help us collectively as a country at all. This bill undermines the influence of workers’ unions and that fundamentally undermines the ability of people to join together to help each other to create a good workplace and to help each other to have decent conditions and better lives. This Government has articulated its vision whereby freeing up employers from the restrictions of such negotiations and any pressure to provide decent conditions means that these employers’ profits will grow enough so that they can employ more people. We are told that this is going to be good for people in New Zealand because it will create more jobs.This bill is yet another example of the trickle-down theory in action. At the heart of this is the same justification given for the existence of sweatshops. We are reminded again and again by this Government whenever we raise issues of equity of the global financial crisis in this world. It is almost as if it is suggesting we are greedy to want the poorest people in New Zealand to be able to live decent lives. This bill increases the power of employers and encourages rogue companies to come in and underbid good employers who offer decent wages and conditions. And you can be sure that that underbidding will come from the wages rather than the profits. This is going to impact on cleaners mostly who are some of the lowest-paid workers in this country and many of whom are women many of whom are Pasifika—the people that this Government gives lip service to wanting to improve the conditions of.This bill removes the guaranteed meal and refreshment breaks. This bill makes it easier for employers to opt out of bargaining for multi-employer contracts which is our structure for getting industry standards. In the words of the Service and Food Workers Union: “There is not one thing in the raft of proposed changes [in this bill] that will help New Zealand workers to increase their already very low wage rates”. Welcome to the dystopia of National’s industrial relations. The National Government is failing to share fairly the benefits of economic prosperity which is happening right now for a small group of people. There are people in New Zealand who are getting richer by the minute in this country and that benefit that wealth is not being shared. The OECD report out today cited incomes well below average and particularly high pre-tax capital income inequality as problems needing redress. It highlighted the low levels of people management skills across the business sector as an underlying cause for low productivity and this bill feeds poor management practice. It encourages employers to see workers striving for better conditions as a pure cost rather than an opportunity for productivity.The Green Party has a much different vision for our future prosperity. It is a vision based on investment in our people adding value in terms of the value chain and our getting a greater share of that. This bill undermines that brighter future.