Employment Law

CTU Critique: National’s Employment Policy
Monday July 28 2008
(Download a word copy here)

Submission to the Transport and Industrial Relations Select Committee, May 2008

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Summary

The CTU strongly supports the re-establishment of rest and meal breaks in law in the main framework of employment relations – the Employment Relations Act (ERA).

Access to regular rest and meal breaks is a basic health, safety and well-being requirement. There is a need for certainty on rest and meal break periods and for these requirements to be explicit in minimum employment legislation for awareness and enforceability purposes.

Re-establishing rest and meal breaks in minimum employment law is part of rebuilding decent and basic employment rights legislation which was radically and deliberately destroyed by the Employment Contracts Act (ECA) 1991.

Speech of CTU President, Helen Kelly to NZ Labour Party Annual Conference 2007
Saturday November 3, 2007.

June 2007

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Comment

After over 6 years of an employment law that promotes collective bargaining, the actual percentage of private sector workers covered by collective agreements is 9%. In the public sector it is 62%. There are several reasons for this result including strong growth in private sector employment in many new types of economic activity and the fact that only union members are in collective agreements. But union membership has been growing even in the private sector. The main reasons for low collective bargaining density lie elsewhere. Employers continue to resist collective bargaining, the transaction costs for unions engaged in enterprise bargaining are very high, and the law only weakly promotes collective bargaining. The law is strong on intentions and good faith rules – but low on structural and institutional support for collective bargaining.