Locke Keith: Holidays Amendment Bill — Second Reading In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee 
Locke Keith: Holidays Amendment Bill — Second Reading In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee 
[Volume:668;Page:15488] 
KEITH LOCKE (Green) 
: 
 The Green Party is continuing to oppose the Holidays Amendment Bill. There is a bit of hypocrisy built into the way that this bill will operate. It was pointed out by Lynne Pillay I think that MPs will have a real choice. We all work pretty hard actually so it is often hard to take holidays but we have the choice as to whether we want 4 weeks’ holiday. If we went through the top-paid layers of society—the chief executive officers the top layers of the legal profession the judiciary etc.—I do not think we would come up with anyone who did not have a real choice to have at least 4 weeks’ holiday. For people at the top of society there is no problem. They will not be affected by this legislation. I do not think that too many judges will be trying to buy out the fifth or sixth week of their holiday. 
It has been said that it is all a question of choice and that anything done under this bill will be done by agreement. But a lot of choices in our society particularly choices in the workplace are subject to a power relationship because the employer not only employs us in the first place but also can direct which section of the workforce we work in whether it is an interesting one and whether we are working with interesting people. It is the employer who determines whether we get promotion. All of these things can be and are being held over the worker’s head. They will be held over the worker’s head when it comes to questions of selling off the fourth week of a holiday if the employer wants that person or a section of the workforce to sell off the fourth week of the holiday so that it can perhaps increase the length of time the particular enterprise is operating in January say. That control over promotion will mean that it is not a real choice. 
The other end of the problem with choice is that the extra money will be a certain enticement for people who are at the very bottom and are paid only $13 an hour and are really struggling to keep their families afloat. The answer for them is not to give away what little leisure they have maybe on top of all the stresses and strains of holding together a big family on a small income. To on top of that have only 3 weeks’ holiday is not the answer; the answer is to have a higher wage. A minimum wage of $15 an hour is a good start in dealing with that problem. 
The power relationship problem does not operate only in big enterprises. It also operates in small shops farms etc. where the person in charge the owner might want to take 4 weeks’ holiday or more themselves. What better way to achieve that than to convince the employee through the power relationship—and using the various mechanisms of potential sacking particularly if the worker has been employed for less than 90 days—to sell off a week of their holiday? Someone else in the enterprise—usually the boss in the shop on the farm or wherever—can then take an extra week themselves. The idea that it is a choice is a bit mythical. 
As the last speaker Carol Beaumont indicated transferring the day off from Christmas Day to some other time will now no longer in effect be by choice or by any real agreement but can be determined in the last analysis by the employer. The whole concept of choice in our society is a bit mythological when we have power relations and when we have what is still called in law a master-servant relationship in the workplace. In many respects it still is. The unions help to redress the power but the whole aim of this Holidays Amendment Bill and the preceding bill the Employment Relations Amendment Bill (No 2) is to redress the power balance in favour of the employer against the union to reduce further whatever choices ordinary workers have in the workplace. I am not saying an element of choice does not exist but it has been reduced.