Dramatic changes in workplace set to boost employees

Equal-pay and new pro-union bargaining laws will cause an earning-envy culture where the employment judiciary workload will increase dramatically.

alternative undertaken.”

“The new equal-pay and new prounion bargaining laws will cause an earning-envy culture where the employment judiciary workload will increase dramatically.”

As a result, significantly more resources would be needed for employment dispute resolution bodies such as the Employment Relations Authority and Employment Court.

“We understand that law firms are already planning to increase their employment law departments,” Whitehead said.

He estimated that the changes would only start to impact the ways to get work country’s economy and productivity in 2019.

Council of Trade Unions president Richard Wagstaff countered these apprehensions, stating the proworker changes would, in fact, improve productivity and ultimately deliver economic benefits to New Zealand.

“These are things that will be good for working people and I don’t subscribe to the idea that what’s good for working people is bad for business.

“In fact, what’s good for working people can generate better employment relations and higher productivity,” he said.

“The current employment standards we have in New Zealand have us performing very badly in the work- place. By any measure, our productivity is not only very low it’s actually falling, which is of great concern to working people and the businesses they work for.”

There was an outcry from business interests when the Employment Relations Act was introduced under Helen Clark’s Government in 2000, with concerns that greater collective bargaining and greater worker entitlements would be bad for business, Wagstaff said.

“Yet what happened? We had the lowest unemployment for a generation.

“That sort of scaremongering is totally misplaced and is totally discredited by our recent history.”

Wagstaff added that working people would spend any extra income they made in New Zealand thus benefiting the economy, unlike surpluses accumulated by the most wealthy, which was generally spent overseas.

In its November Economic Overview, Westpac said it expected unemployment to rise in 2018, mainly due to the “sluggish economy“.

However, the rate was expected to fall again from late 2019 as a result of the Government’s plan to borrow more and spend more, thus stimulating the economy over time.

Max Whitehead