Policy Comparison - Work Rights

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This comparison includes policy from the following parties: Mana, Greens, Labour, NZ First, Maori, National, ACT

Mana

  • Support changes to employment relations laws that give workers greater bargaining power to negotiate wages and conditions with their employers, and oppose changes that reduce the bargaining power of workers and unions.
  • Immediately increase the minimum wage to $15 per hour (by 1 April 2012) and raise it to two-thirds of the average wage (by 1 April 2013).  
  • Oppose reintroduction of a lower minimum wage for youth.

Greens

  • Strengthen collective bargaining rights recognising collective bargaining.
  • Implement international standards on the right to strike, worker accident compensation, pay equity, flexible working hours, and breastfeeding breaks.
  • Remove the 90-day probation period for new employees.
  • Facilitate greater worker participation on company boards, as has been successfully implemented in Germany, and encourage employees to take an ownership stake in their companies.
  • Increase the minimum wage to $15 per hour immediately, and commit to future increases until it reaches 66 percent of the average wage.

Labour

  • Amend the Employment Relations Act to implement Industry Standard Agreements.
  • Amend the Employment Relations Act to provide greater support for collective bargaining, including multi-employer collective bargaining.
  • Increase the minimum wage to $15 per hour during first year in government.
  • Provide for the right to strike when the employer makes a significant proposal for restructuring or outsourcing that in effect renders the collective agreement ineffective.
  • Implement the recommendations of the 2008 Ministerial Advisory Group report on redundancy and restructuring, providing greater certainty.
  • Give workers employed in precarious forms of employment (such as labour hire, casual employment and contracting) similar rights to those in more traditional forms of employment.
  • Investigate and implement best practice statutory support and legal rights for dependent contractors, including minimum wage protection and other rights. As a minimum, extend the right to organise and collectively bargain to contractors who are primarily selling their labour, and provide an effective and cheap disputes resolution procedure.
  • Repeal 90 day trials.
  • Repeal the restrictions on access for workers to their unions in the workplace brought in by National.
  • Restore reinstatement as the primary remedy and the test of justification when an employee has been unjustifiably dismissed
  • Restore the Holidays Act to 2008 settings and give workers public holidays for Anzac and Waitangi Day whatever day of the week they fall on.
  • Repeal National’s Employment Relations Act “Warner Brothers” amendments in regard to workers in the film and video production industries.
  • Use the findings of the Review of the Employment Relations (Flexible Working Arrangements) Act to promote and strengthen flexible working arrangements.

New Zealand First

  • Lift the minimum wage to $15 an hour.

Maori

  • Increase the minimum wage to $16 an hour.
  • Establish a health workforce project for pay parity to retain Maori nurses in iwi providers. 
  • Invest in development pathways for the non-regulated workforce (community health workers).
  • Review the work conditions, pay and training opportunities for those working in the elderly, disability and home care sector.
  • Develop strategies to bring levels of salary for women to the same levels as their male counterparts for similar work in State Services, Treasury and DPMC.
     

National

  • Reduce minimum wage for 16-17 year olds to 80 percent of general minimum wage for first 6 months of work with each employer.
  • Reduce minimum wage for 18-19 year olds who have come directly off a benefit to 80 percent of general minimum wage for first 6 months of employment.
  • Allow trainee wage (80 percent of minimum wage) to be paid to 16-19 year olds if they are enrolled in only 40 credits compared to 60 credits previously.
  • No longer require employers to conclude a collective agreement negotiation.
  • Remove the requirement for all new employees to be employed under the applicable collective employment agreement for their first 30 days.
  • Allow employers to refuse to engage in multi-employer collective bargaining negotiations.
  • All employers to reduce pay when employees take partials strike action.
  • Review constructive dismissal rules to reduce the number of claims being made.
  • Extend flexible working arrangements to all employees, removing requirements for a formal process, being six months in the job, and the limit on the number of requests an employee may make.
  • Allow employers to reduce pay when employees take partial strike action.

ACT

  • Re-introduce a youth training rate or minimum wage.
  • Introduce sanctions such as suspension of the unemployment benefit and mandatory work-for-the-dole in cases where reasonable offers of employment are declined.
     
Authorised by: NZCTU - 178 Willis Street, Wellington

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