PM warns unions off radical change
Jacinda Ardern has warned an impatient Council of Trade Unions conference that to make big change in industrial relations law, the Government would have to take the public with them.
‘‘Big bold moves that we haven’t built public support for are easily dismantled,’’ Ardern told the assembled union delegates in Wellington at the biennial conference of the peak body of the New Zealand trade union movement.
The prime minister defended her Government’s record, saying that under the Labour-led coalition the pay packet of a minimum wage worker would be boosted by $170 per week by 2021, but warned that new laws require consensus in a MMP government.
‘‘I do know their chance of sticking is increased the longer we are in government and the more collaboratively we work to build consensus for them,’’ Ardern said.
At stake is the Government’s Fair Work Agreements that have been slow to progress through Parliament. Earlier during the day, NZ First leader Winston Peters was equivocal about his party’s support for the measures.
Ardern said in 2018 that no more than two Fair Pay Agreements would be concluded during this term of government.
‘‘Working people need this coalition Government to deliver on their promises. We all know what is needed to make good Fair Pay Agreement law – the work has been done. Now is the time for action,’’ Council of Trade Unions president Richard Wagstaff said.
For the union movement, Fair Pay Agreements are at the centre of a push to increase the workers’ share of income in the economy.
‘‘Across the developed world, sector-wide collective bargaining is standard practice. New Zealand currently has an outdated approach that allows some unscrupulous employers to drive down wages and conditions for everyone else,’’ Public Service Association national secretary Kerry Davis said.
The unions have been excited about the prospect of industrywide awards, which would explicitly reduce flexibility and competition in the labour market, in favour of putting a floor under wages and conditions.
These will be proposed deals under which the Government will make industry-wide employment agreements if 1000 workers or 10 per cent of a given workforce vote in favour of an industry-wide agreement.
‘‘Fair Pay Agreements will make work better for many people, while returning a fairer share of the wealth working Kiwis generate,’’ Wagstaff said.
‘‘Too many working people in low-paid industries like cleaning, security and supermarkets struggle to make ends meet.
‘‘Fair Pay Agreements prevent unscrupulous employers undercutting others in the industry and creating a race to the bottom,’’ Wagstaff said.
The deal would also greatly empower the union movement, which would likely become the bargaining agents for whole industries, even in cases where as many as 89 per cent of workers in an industry were happy with the status quo.