Debate resumed from 27 April.
DARIEN FENTON (Labour) Link to this
On the day between the beginning of the first reading of this bill and today, it was International Workers Memorial Day. That is a day when we remember all of the workers who have been killed or injured on the job in New Zealand and throughout the world. It was interesting that the Minister of Labour, who introduced the Employment Relations (Rest Breaks and Meal Breaks) Amendment Bill—and it is an important bill, because it is an important health and safety requirement that we have breaks on the job—said that it was a sober reminder that New Zealand continues to lose more than one person each week in fatal workplace accidents. She noted that serious accident statistics show that there are around 6,000 injuries or accidents in the workplace every year. She went on to say that there was a lot of room for improvement, and the Government would continue to work with businesses and unions to foster a strong workplace safety culture. I find those statements incredibly ironic when that Minister is putting forward a bill that will take away the rights of workers to have a break on the job for rest, to carry out personal business, or for refreshment.
That Minister was part of the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee that heard the submissions on Labour’s bill, the Employment Relations (Breaks and Infant Feeding) Amendment Bill, which this bill completely undermines and undoes.
Chris HipkinsActually, National voted in favour of it, but here they are, undoing all that good work. She heard one particular story that I would like to relay to the House. James Joseph was an Indian immigrant worker who came to New Zealand 11 years ago and worked in a Wellington ethnic restaurant. It took him some time to figure out that, although he was not getting any rest breaks, lunch breaks, or anything else, other workers were getting breaks, so he started to ask questions. He insisted to his employer that he should have a short break. He was working from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. and from 4.30 p.m. to 11 p.m. or later. He wanted to have a short break every 3 hours, but he was called a troublemaker and was sacked by his employer. After 6 months he got another job, and he raised the work break issue with his new employer. He thought he would be on safer ground, because he had a written employment agreement—something that had not been given to him in his previous job. It even had a rest breaks clause. It said: “The employer can arrange rest and meal breaks so they do not cause disruptions to clients, customers, or production.” To me, that sounds incredibly like this bill, as it says that the power is in the hands of employers to arrange breaks when it suits them. Poor old James went see his employer, as he thought he could talk about meals and rest breaks since he had that clause in his contract. He was told by his employer that it was impossible to have a break because the restaurant was just too busy. So it was just tough; he could not have a break. After arguing with the employer, James was told that he was being insubordinate, and he got the sack again.
It was for workers like James that Labour introduced the rest and meal breaks legislation. It will be workers like James—the vulnerable, the unorganised, and the un-unionised—who will suffer because this Government is determined to take away their rights. The whole point of the law was to ensure that we had minimum requirements for rest, for workers to be able to carry out their personal business or pay attention to their personal needs, and to get refreshments at an appropriate time. The provisions in the current Act are extremely sensible. They provide for two 10-minute tea breaks and a half-hour unpaid lunch break for the average, normal-length day. The problem with what the Minister is proposing is that it will enable employers to decide whether a worker should have a break in the first place, and, if they do, how long that break is and when it should occur. It will also allow employers to require workers to work in an unpaid break. Apart from the fact that they might not get one, if they give them one, it is unpaid. They could put restrictions on what they are required to do.
It is very interesting. There are a whole lot of questions around this particular bill. There are a whole lot of things in it, and it provides so much uncertainty. In all my years dealing with employers, I know that they want certainty about what is required. One question I have that will come up in the select committee is how long a break has to be. The 10-minute requirement and the half-hour requirement are taken away, so an employer could meet the requirements of this legislation by allowing a 1-minute break or a 5-minute break. The employer gets to decide that. Then there is the test of reasonableness. It is a very hard test to meet. Nobody knows what that means. I would have thought that with this Minister having lectured us at length when she was in Opposition about flawed and reckless legislation, we could have expected a whole lot better.
I think that this legislation will make things worse. It provides many excuses for employers not to give breaks at all. It provides them with an excuse to say that they are sorry, but they are too busy, so there will be no breaks today. It creates another health and safety risk. We have one worker a week dying on the job in this country. This bill should not proceed.
MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National) Link to this
I once heard it said that political discourse requires two elements: trust and understanding. That is certainly true here. Labour members do not trust us and we sure as heck do not understand them. The same truism applies between employers and employees. Good employment relations are built on high levels of trust and understanding, and, consequently, poor relationships in the workplace have low levels of trust and understanding. That has been the case for generations.
The previous Government, when it passed the Employment Relations (Breaks, Infant Feeding, and Other Matters) Amendment Act, which brought in the legislation that this bill seeks to amend, said that it was motivated by the fact that there was no specific legal requirement for employees to have rest and meal breaks. Well, that had been the situation for a long, long time, but almost 93 percent of active collective employment agreements provided for rest and meal breaks. It was acknowledged that there were some problems with the organisation of work in certain niches in small ways right across different sectors. But little was known about whether the break provisions that were included in the individual employment agreements, or in workplaces generally, were working or widespread. Rather than actually find out what was going on in those workplaces, the previous Labour Government passed that legislation. I think that it is patently unworkable in many areas. The baby was thrown out with the bathwater.
I will give members an example of a situation that existed at the hospital that I managed for some time. Throughput at hospitals, particularly private hospitals, often means that by the time the weekend comes around there is quite a low number of patients left in the ward. In nightshifts over the weekend, we would have as few as two registered nurses on staff over the night. Because of safety requirements, it literally was not possible for one of those nurses to leave the ward. The nurses had plenty of opportunities to take a break, but, under the strict definitions of the employment agreement we had with them, that did not constitute a break, because they were not able to leave the ward. What did we do? By agreement with the nurses, we paid them a meal allowance and we paid them for the time that they were there at time and a half, and it was a perfectly satisfactory arrangement. But the moment that legislation was passed, it put that arrangement at odds with the law. That employer is probably still at odds with the law, because I know that common sense will be prevailing in that organisation.
We also had the issue of sole-charge air traffic controllers, which was raised in a financial review with the Civil Aviation Authority. Even then the member Darien Fenton in her questioning of the chairman referred to the rest and meal breaks issue as being extremely thorny. The Civil Aviation Authority at that time—this time last year—was quite confident that it would be able to resolve the issue. Frankly, it could not. Unfortunately, the type of flexibility that is needed for good employment relationships no longer exists, and that is what this bill seeks to address.
I will touch on one other issue that occurred at Dunedin Airport earlier this year, when the whole airport had to be closed. It was closed because the sole-charge air traffic controller had called in sick. As a consequence, seven other—
Hon Trevor MallardMICHAEL WOODHOUSE Link to this
No, but it does have to do with flexibility in employment agreements. Six other staff members were available, but not a single one of them was allowed under the agreement to go back in and see a couple of planes land because of the overly restrictive covenants that were put in place by the unions in their employment agreement. What happened? Hundreds of passengers were diverted to Invercargill and Christchurch. The airport closed because of a lack of flexibility in the overly rigid arrangements that were put in place by the employment agreement.
I hope that that situation can change. I hope that Dunedin Airport never has to close again because of that. It is not O’Hare Airport or Heathrow; it is not as if these very good workers, one or two of whom I know, are working flat stick for 8 hours. It should be possible to accommodate those once-in-a-blue-moon events. At least in respect of rest and meal breaks, I think this bill is a very good start. I commend it to the House.
A party vote was called for on the question,
That the Employment Relations (Rest Breaks and Meal Breaks) Amendment Bill be now read a first time.
Ayes 68
Noes 52
Bill read a first time.
Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN (Minister of Immigration) Link to this
I move, That the Employment Relations (Rest Breaks and Meal Breaks) Amendment Bill be referred to the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee .
A party vote was called for on the question,
That the motion be agreed to.
Ayes 68
Noes 52
Motion agreed to.