Progress made to sort out the labour market

Progress was made on National’s election promises on employment relations.

Having faced some criticism from business for moving slowly on its employment relations promises, changes to collective bargaining rules have now been approved by Cabinet.

The next step is that they will go before Parliament, and that is likely to be this year.

Describing the changes as “modest”, Labour Minister Kate Wilkinson said they address the fact that some of the current rules are overly bureaucratic, limit choice and reduce the effectiveness of the bargaining process.

“The changes we are making are about improving efficiencies and making it fairer for both workers and employers.”

Sorting out the labour market

National’s election manifesto on employment and industrial relations was largely about removing artificial barriers, improving productivity in workplace relations and boosting the country’s capacity for economic growth.

It centred on plans to review the efficiency of the collective bargaining process. That included plans to:

• Return to the original position of the Employment Relations Act where duty of good faith does not require the parties to conclude a collective agreement. Currently, the duty of good faith requires parties to collective bargaining to conclude a collective agreement unless there is a genuine reason not to.
• Allowing parties to opt out of negotiations for a multi-employer collective agreement before negotiations begin, if they decide it is not the right option for them.
• Allowing for partial pay reductions in cases of partial strike action or situations of low-level industrial action. Currently, employees can engage in partial strike action and still receive full pay. National intended the partial pay for partial strikes policy to even the balance and create a fairer bargaining environment.
• Removing the 30-day rule which forces non-union members to be employed on the collective agreement terms for their first month on the job.

The Employers and Manufacturers Association says not much is new in the proposed changes, which were all well flagged in National’s election manifesto.

Employment services manger David Lowe says employers will welcome the removal of the need to conclude a collective agreement – or meet for the sake of meeting when the issues have been well debated.

“If the parties cannot reach an agreement they should not be bound to put the business at risk, as at present, and keep on negotiating endlessly.

Port strife would have happened anyway

Proposed changes to collective bargaining are unlikely to have averted industrial action at Ports of Auckland. But perhaps they could have brought quicker resolve to the acrimonious dispute.

National MP Tau Herare’s proposal to require unions to hold a secret ballot for their members to approve a strike would have, potential, made a greater difference and lowered the number of port workers on strike.

Mr Henare’s Employment Relations (Secret Ballot for Strikes) Amendment Bill, passed into law last week, requires strike action to be voted on by secret ballot, rather than in an open-room situation.

“Virtually every time there is a strike the employers finds individual union members telling them they don’t support it and would prefer to work,” says Mr Lowe.

“A few outspoken people can make it appear there is strong worker support for a strike when in fact there may not be.

“Quite a few unions, such as the Engineers Union already conduct secret ballots so this law change really only affects a few unions like the Maritime Union which have resisted them.”

While it will still be a year before secret ballots become mandatory, and two years before unions must change their rules, employers will expect them to be carried out for every relevant occasion from now on.