Businesses urged to pay fairly

Unions and business lobby groups are calling for employers to be responsible and pay staff during the latest alert level changes.

Auckland returned to alert level 3 from 6am on Sunday for a week, and the rest of the country shifted to level 2, in response to new community cases of Covid-19.

During the previous three-day level 3 lockdown last month, optometry retailer OPSM paid staff only 25 per cent of their contracted hours and asked them to top up their pay with annual leave.

First Union organiser Tali Williams said multinational clothing chain H&M only paid its staff 60 per cent of their usual pay during that lockdown.

Williams said the community expected the big retailers that had been profitable or repaid their wage subsidy to be paying their staff 100 per cent of their wages for the week.

‘‘During the lockdowns last year everyone was unsure what would happen next. People feared the economy would crash and the businesses wouldn’t have anything, but that’s not what’s happened,’’ Williams said.

‘‘People haven’t gone overseas, they have stayed home and spent their money.

‘‘We need to put pressure on the big employers to the right thing.’’

Williams said big employers included retailers like, Kmart, H&M, Countdown and Pak ‘n Save. A Warehouse spokeswoman said the company paid all staff their full wages when they were not working.

Businesses that take the wage subsidy are expected to top up the wage subsidy to at least 80 per cent of the workers’ salary if they can afford to.

Williams said workers should not be required to use their annual leave to top up their pay.

Businesses repaid more than $700 million of the wage subsidy before the February lockdown. Over the scheme’s lifetime, more than 750,000 businesses claimed about $14 billion through the scheme.

After revelations that multiple people who have Covid-19 went to work while infectious, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern asked employers to ensure their staff were following the rules and restrictions.

CTU president Richard Wagstaff said the decision to isolate should not be clouded by fear of being disadvantaged or penalised for staying home.

‘‘We need to work together so that isolation is not only the right thing to do but also the easy thing to do. Workplaces must communicate this message so that everyone knows what’s expected of them.’’

BusinessNZ chief executive Kirk Hope said an important part of managing the community outbreak was ensuring employers encouraged staff to isolate and paid them while they were doing so.

Dundas Street Employment Lawyers senior associate Chloe Luscombe earlier said that unless there was a clause in employee contracts dealing with shift cancellations, the workers should be paid.

Luscombe said the Employment Relations Act required shift workers to have shift cancellation provisions in their employment agreement, as well as terms that stated how much notice had to be given and the compensation if that notice was not given.

According to the law, the notice of shift cancellation in the employment agreement had to be ‘‘reasonable’’, she said.