Business backs fair pay working group

The country’s top business body will play ball for now with the Government’s plan to encourage ‘‘fair pay agreements’’ across different industries.

A working group announced by Workplace Relations Minister Iain Lees-Galloway and headed by former prime minister Jim Bolger will design a new collective bargaining system aimed at ensuring decent pay and conditions for ‘‘middle New Zealanders’’ who might earn more than the minimum wage.

BusinessNZ chief executive Kirk Hope and Hospitality NZ chief executive Vicki Lee have agreed to be on the 10-person working group.

Wellington Chamber of Commerce head John Milford, representing BusinessNZ, said it had some concerns ‘‘around flexibility’’ and ensuring businesses could maintain a strong relationship with their own employees.

‘‘Of course cost is a concern. We want to ensure all businesses can afford the outcomes.

‘‘The other thing is industrial Iain Lees-Galloway

harmony. We have got to ensure we come out with a solution that is supported by the majority of businesses and employees.’’

But BusinessNZ was ‘‘pleased to be part of the solution’’, he said. It was better for BusinessNZ to be in the working group than to ‘‘sit on the outside and lob hand grenades in’’, he said.

‘‘We will participate willingly and enthusiastically with this body to get the best outcome. If at the end of the day we don’t like the outcome, that won’t stop us from taking that position.’’

Lees-Galloway said he did not think fair pay agreements would eventuate in all industries.

‘‘We are going to determine the conditions under which we think initiating bargaining for a fair pay agreement is appropriate . . . but then it will be over to unions and employers in particular industries to decide if they want to initiate bargaining themselves. There will be industries where people are satisfied with the status quo.’’

If employers and unions in an industry agreed to negotiate an agreement, there would then need to be ‘‘some way of working through an impasse’’ if they could not reach an agreement, he said.

‘‘Whether it is some form of arbitration or something else, I am agnostic on and that. It is a question I have asked the working group to consider.

‘‘Largely New Zealand businesses are adaptable and we do need to transition our economy to one that is more productive, sustainable and inclusive,’’ he said.

Council of Trade Unions president Richard Wagstaff acknowledged there were ‘‘a lot of unknowns’’.

‘‘But we think this isn’t only good for working New Zealanders, this is good for good businesses too.’’

First union retail, finance and commerce secretary Tali Williams supported the central premise of fair pay agreements – that they would assist employers who wanted to treat workers better, but found that difficult currently.