Roche Denise: Employment Relations Amendment Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeRoche Denise: Employment Relations Amendment Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 19 March 2014. Volume:697;Page:16811. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]DENISE ROCHE (Green):It is a great shame that the Employment Relations Amendment Bill has returned to the House for its second reading. I am rising to take a call for the Greens on it. This piece of legislation does nothing for the economy does nothing for job creation does nothing to address inequality in Aotearoa and does nothing to lift the 280000 children living in poverty in this country out of poverty. This bill does nothing to fix that.This bill amends the Employment Relations Act of 2000. That Act states that its original aim was to promote collective bargaining which we all know—certainly on this side of the House—is one of the requirements of the International Labour Organization’s clauses that we have endorsed. This bill states that its raison d’être its reason for being is that it “implements Government policy”—and I am quoting here—“that is aimed at creating an employment relations framework that increases flexibility and choice ensures a balance of fairness for employers and employees and reduces compliance costs … It also reduces unnecessary regulation. The Bill will help create an environment where employers can grow their business …”. From my point of view that does not seem very balanced at all. It feels like the aims of this bill as stated like that tilt the balance of power in favour of the employer and that does nothing to increase jobs improve the economy increase wages—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): I am sorry to interrupt the honourable member. The time has come for me to leave the Chair for the dinner break.Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.DENISE ROCHE: When I was interrupted I was talking about balance and fairness. Before I get into my speech I just want to take a moment to acknowledge the passing of Viv Walker who was a stalwart of the Wellington union movement and a good feminist. It was her funeral tonight. She strongly believed in fairness and her funeral was actually a fund-raiser for the pay equity campaign.We believe that a balanced approach means that workers’ rights are protected that managers manage well and that businesses thrive from a cooperative work environment. There are examples of this and we had submissions from members of the Dairy Workers Union who are highly unionised and who have a thriving relationship with their employer and excellent productivity as a result. They are well unionised and they bargain collectively.It is a false economy to legislate like this. Over 400000 people are receiving Working for Families. That means that the taxpayer is subsidising employers to keep wages low. For low-paid workers—like for example the cleaners who clean this House who are unionised and who earn $14.10 an hour—the costs of that low pay are externalised. That means that the taxpayer pays the social costs that come with poverty wages. When we lift wages through good union rights and collective bargaining all of us are better off. So how do workers improve their wages? They do it through collective bargaining and through the ability to organise and join a union. This bill removes the duty to conclude bargaining. It cuts through any attempt that workers can make to improve their lot. It removes the right of workers to be included in a multi-employer collective if the employer does not want to be part of it. It allows employers to refuse to bargain. Basically it undermines all the principles of good faith that are in the existing legislation.It further harms working conditions by allowing for the divide and rule of workers by employers. So where a workplace currently has a collective employment agreement this bill will remove the right of new employees to be on that collective agreement for the first 30 days. So it takes us back to 1991 and the Employment Contracts Act where the focus was on individual bargaining. But there is little choice in bargaining your wages and conditions and there is little power and very little balance in the employment relationship when you want the job and when there are thousands of other workers who are unemployed who will take less than you to get that job. When you combine that with the 90-day trial provisions this Government introduced which allow employers to sack workers for no reason whatsoever before 90 days we have a situation where the balance is tipped in favour of the employer and the employee has very little say whatsoever. That very thing undermines the ability of other workers to get decent pay and conditions because it pulls everybody’s wages down.We received written submissions from over 12000 union members. All of them were really concerned about the clawbacks in this bill that will erode their wages and conditions. As a worker the only way to redress the imbalance in the employment relationship—and so much employment law actually shows that the relationship is not balanced—is through collective bargaining and collective action and in a worst-case scenario when things go wrong through industrial action. This bill will actually escalate industrial action by introducing penalties on workers if they are participating in partial strikes. That is their last-ditch weapon of negotiation. If they participate in a partial strike they will be penalised. What that means—and we heard this from submitters—is that they will say: “Oh well—might as well go the whole hog and go on strike.” So it is actually conducive to poor employment relationships.I have to say that a lot of the provisions in this legislation use a sledgehammer to crack a nut. There have been only around a dozen cases of industrial action or industrial unrest in the last few years. Two major cases have been Talley’s in the meat sector and the Ports of Auckland. Workers faced huge clawbacks from their employers and casualisation there and it was the employer that took militant industrial action by locking workers out.This bill is mean-spirited—the removal of tea breaks for heaven’s sake. It totally undermines any of the health and safety legislation that was just recently introduced to the House last week. Having a tea break is a time for a worker to rest and they will be under pressure—you can bet your boots they will be under pressure—to sell it in exchange for I do not know a lolly.The bill also removes the only provision that we have had in law in Part 6A of the Employment Relations Act—and that was thanks to the Labour Government and frankly the work of Darien Fenton from the Labour Party—that was protection for vulnerable workers. It was the only way they could be sure of security of work if a current contractor—say a cleaning contractor or laundry contractor—was undercut by another. These workers are not in a strong position to be able to take industrial action and to be totally militant. This provision was their only protection. This Government has eroded it to the detriment of those workers.We have heard a lot about productivity and how this bill increases productivity but what we actually know is that productivity has increased over the last 10 years while wages have stagnated. Our rock star economy is not working for the low paid. This legislation cements inequality. The provisions in this bill will ensure that another generation of workers is condemned to low wages and poor conditions. This legislation is a breach of our international human rights obligations. We want good lives and fair futures for all workers in Aotearoa New Zealand. This bill will not deliver that.