Employment Relations (Workers’ Secret Ballot for Strikes) Amendment Bill

Hon TAU HENARE (National) Link to this

I move, That the Employment Relations (Workers’ Secret Ballot for Strikes) Amendment Bill be now read a second time. First of all, I thank the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee for a sterling job, and I also give immense thanks for the assistance that I received from the clerks of the committee, and the chairperson, Mr David Bennett.

I say this is a very, very non-controversial bill—very, very non-controversial. It does not set out to take rights away from anybody, and it does not set out to give people something that somebody else in the community does not have. It codifies what is in a lot of union rules already, and that is that when a group of workers—for whatever reason—decides to withdraw its labour, all that my bill says is needed in order to do that is that they should have a secret ballot. What more could a democracy ask for than a secret ballot?

Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South) Link to this

I think this Employment Relations (Workers’ Secret Ballot for Strikes) Amendment Bill was a bill on which a marginal call was made by Labour to support it going to a select committee, after a bit of discussion. We have heard the evidence. I think the general view is that it is mostly a relatively harmless bill, but that there are some dangers in the bill that we were not cognisant of before it went to the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee, and so the marginal call is that we will now oppose the bill.

I am not going to pretend that this is serious legislation in the way that most of the legislation that comes from Kate Wilkinson is. I am not going to pretend that it is going to make an enormous difference in the lives of workers around the country, or that it is going to have them sacked left, right, and centre in the way that Kate Wilkinson tries to do with her legislation. But we have come to the point that the compliance costs and the extra regulation that flow from this bill are unnecessary and, probably more important, in the hands of the wrong employers it could lead to extra litigation. Again, I am not saying that most employers will be at all affected by this, because I think we all know that strikes are relatively rare in New Zealand compared with most countries, and, actually, most employers are satisfied with the ballots that occur. I think we also know that unions are generally very reluctant to get involved in strike action unless they have a clear mandate from their members. If unions think a strike ballot is going to be a close-run thing, chances are that the ballot is not even put, because people want to have a groundswell and clear support if people are going on strike, because it is a very serious thing for the workers involved.

But in some cases a ballot happens, and there is a clear majority. The concern that Labour has involves this legislation being in the hands of unscrupulous employers, and I will give the example that always results in Damien O’Connor getting a phone call—the Talleys-AFFCO link. If New Zealand’s worst employer—the only employer to lose a case and be held to be in breach of the Employment Contracts Act—decided to use this sort of legislation in order to stop a strike, it could cost a lot of money to the workers involved in legal expenses and that sort of thing, to no major benefit.

The other pretty obvious point I make is that there are no countervailing obligations on employers in this legislation. In most parts of industrial legislation there are countervailing obligations; if there is an obligation for employees, or the organisation of employees, there is an obligation for employers. In this case I am not sure what the obligation should be. Some of my colleagues have suggested that it may be that shareholders should approve a lockout, and take that approach. There is a halfway point that I would possibly be more supportive of, if we are going in for a countervailing measure, which is that at least the board of directors should make a decision, and not a lower-level official in a firm.

DAVID BENNETT (National—Hamilton East) Link to this

I want to support my colleague Tau Henare, who has done a fantastic job in bringing the Employment Relations (Workers’ Secret Ballot for Strikes) Amendment Bill to the House. Labour members could not find a problem with this bill, and they wanted to support it, but they got a phone call from Helen Kelly an hour before tonight’s debate saying that Labour could not support it. She got on the phone and she went to Labour members and said that they could not support this legislation. She said the unions needed Labour’s support, otherwise they would not campaign for Labour next year. That is what would have happened an hour ago.

Poor Tau! Tau brought this bill into the House with genuine intentions. He took it through the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee and there were submissions on it. The Labour Party now says “No” to the bill, and it is saying this only at the last minute because it cannot handle it and it has to do what it is told to do by the unions. I think that is a sad case. It is a very sad case for this Parliament when one of the political parties in it cannot stand up for what it believes in. Labour does not have a problem with this bill; it does not see this bill as a problem. In fact, if there is a problem, then Trevor identified it. He talked about one of his mates who had been fixing votes, and he said that there was no problem but that one of his mates had sort of done that, so there must have been a case that he was talking about. Legislation is needed when people break the rules like that. This legislation has good values and it is needed. Thank you.

DARIEN FENTON (Labour) Link to this

I am delighted to make a contribution on the Employment Relations (Workers’ Secret Ballot for Strikes) Amendment Bill after that expert on industrial relations, the chair of the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee, David Bennett. My goodness! We learnt a lot about workers’ rights and employers’ rights and all sorts of things through the bills that we have been through in the last few weeks. I think he just said it all really about his experience. Labour did support this bill at the beginning, because we thought it was a bit harmless, but I said some things in my first reading speech and I have not changed my mind about them. In my first reading speech I said that that this was a completely unnecessary bill. I do not doubt that the member the Hon Tau Henare means well, but he is basing this on his experience as the only clerical workers union organiser who ever got sacked in the whole history of the country. That was 25 to 30 years ago, and things have changed massively since then.

His experience was so different. He does not seem to understand that today union membership is voluntary. That means that workers are free to join or not join unions. It means if workers do not agree with the decisions of their unions or their fellow union members, they can resign. They are not captured. In his day it was compulsory union membership. That member used to go around and conduct strike ballots, and I have no doubt he would stand over people, but it does not happen these days. Unions are democratic organisations and members have a variety of ways of raising disagreements with their unions, including resigning. They also have rights under the Employment Relations Act to raise issues of good faith because there is an employment relationship between members and their unions.

As I said, on the face of it this bill seems pretty harmless. It is unfortunate, and I feel a bit sorry for Tau Henare actually, that since this bill had its first reading and went to the select committee, this Government has launched an attack on New Zealand wage earners and salary earners. It has removed any goodwill from unions or workers and any goodwill or trust on this side of the House. The truth is that bad employers are being given permission by this Government to behave even worse. I accept that most employers are good employers, but we are legislating through a whole range of bills, including this one, for bad employers. When we combine this bill with other legislation that is coming through the Order Paper, such as the meals and rest breaks take-away-your-rights legislation, the 90-day trial fire-at-will legislation, and the sell-your-holidays legislation, we see that this bill is a lot less innocuous than it seems and that the member would have us believe.

In addition, during the submissions process I got quite worried. When we open the door to these sorts of provisions, we start to get some bad employers who get some crazy ideas. For example, Business New Zealand and the Employers and Manufacturers Association came along to submit and said that the ballot level should be 75 percent—there should be a 75 percent vote in favour of strike before it goes ahead. The majority applies to everyone else except workers. That is what they said, along with a whole lot of other things that made me more uneasy about the bill. I acknowledge that the bill was improved in the select committee. I support some of the changes, which I am greatly relieved about. I record my thanks to the officials and the clerks and the department for their advice and assistance with making this bill make at least a little bit of sense, but it does not make a lot of sense. I am pleased that National and the member in charge of the bill took on board the right to strike on health and safety. This bill restores that right of workers not to be in a situation where they have to work in a situation where their lives or their health could be in danger. I am glad that we have at least fixed that part of the bill. Some other things are there that I think are good clarifications. They are all useful changes, but it does not make the bill any less pointless.

I think the member would acknowledge that at the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee I genuinely tried to understand where he was coming from and what his intentions and motivation were. I accepted the comments he made in the first reading that he was trying to protect a person’s right to withdraw their labour, and to ensure that they were fully informed and not under any threat, either physical or mental—I have not heard of a worker being under a physical threat of strike recently. But there was no evidence from workers that there was a problem; nor did the committee hear from anyone who said they had been intimidated into going on strike. As I say, I know the member is referring back to his experience 25 years ago and maybe it happened then, but it certainly does not happen now. If workers had come along and told the committee there was a problem, then, honestly, we would have listened, and that would have been more convincing, but there were none.

If the intent of the member in charge of the bill is to provide for more transparency and democracy, he should look overseas and see what international conventions say about freedom of association, which is an international convention that New Zealand has signed up to. His Minister of Labour, Kate Wilkinson, goes off to the ILO and makes big speeches about New Zealand signing up to fundamental conventions, but here we are considering a bill that will interfere with the rights of workers’ organisations and employers’ organisations to run their organisations democratically. As I said, what does it mean when we combine this with the Government’s proposals on restriction of access? There would have to be a strike ballot, but the employer may not let the organiser in to run the strike ballot. Often strikes are very, very tense and complex situations. Even though the chair of the committee, David Bennett, does not believe this, unions are, more often than not, involved in solving tensions and difficulties, not creating them. The ability to deny access will only create more escalation.

And, while I am talking about strikes, let us talk about the problem we have in New Zealand today with escalating strike action. The latest statistics for the year ended June 2010 show that there were 29 stoppages, involving 13,829 employees, losses of 17,989 person days of work, and an estimated $3.1 million lost in wages and salaries. That was a combination of strikes and lockouts, and it was much, much worse than it has been in the past. Holding a secret ballot will not change those shocking statistics; the only thing that will change them is changing the Government. It is the only way we will get through that, because this is a Government that does not care about workers’ rights. It does not respect workers. The Government sold out a whole group of workers a couple of weeks ago because an American corporate came over and waved a big stick. It is removing access to justice for every worker in New Zealand in their first 90 days of employment because ACT told it to do so. What sort of Government is that?

If we are talking about fear, I suggest that workers will be far more fearful of losing their jobs and getting the sack with no rights within their first 90 days of employment than being made to vote in favour of a strike. There was one way through this, and I suggested it to the select committee. I genuinely tried to understand the member’s intent and I put up a proposal, which I will put forward by way of Supplementary Order Paper during the Committee stage. We proposed a simple amendment to Part 4 of the Employment Relations Act, which is about union rules. The chair of the select committee did not understand this, but under the Employment Relations Act unions are required to have rules governing the democratic processes of their unions. I proposed that they should have in those rules, under the law, a requirement to have secret ballots for strikes. That would achieve the stated aim, it would keep employers out of the mix, it would stop litigation—because I think this bill will make the process extremely litigious—it would keep the process democratic, and it would stop unnecessary compliance costs being imposed on unions.

I think this bill will harm employment relationships, but, most of all, it will do nothing to improve our economy, our wages, and the lives of New Zealanders. That is why Labour opposes this bill. Thank you.

DAVID CLENDON (Green) Link to this

I am pleased to take a call on the Employment Relations (Workers’ Secret Ballot for Strikes) Amendment Bill, and in doing so I acknowledge my colleague Keith Locke, who has led the charge and done the background work on this proposed legislation. At the bill’s first reading we supported its referral to the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee, but it was qualified support. In his first reading speech my colleague posed two challenges to the mover of the bill. He said that whether we support it beyond its first reading and its referral to the select committee would depend on whether it was proved at the select committee that there is a real need for this bill, and, secondly, on whether there were ways to handle some of the downsides of the bill that were spoken about at that point. In summary, he posed the question: what is the problem that exists that requires the intervention of this bill?

It is often said that we are over-legislated, that we have too many laws, too much legislation. We have come to the view that this bill is simply unnecessary. It would serve no useful purpose and there are some definite negative elements to it that would do nothing for industrial relations and employment relations in this country. We have done the work, the investigation, and we believe that there is no demonstrated pattern of unions engaging in strike action without a democratic mandate from their members. Clearly, any proposed strike that came without the support of the members of a particular union would not win their support and potentially would lead to loss of membership of the union. Indeed, unions are legally established as incorporated societies and, as such, are obliged to operate in a genuinely open, transparent, and democratic fashion. To impose any sort of strike action on their members could clearly be seen to contravene that and could lead, ultimately, to the dissolution of a union. Clearly there is no case to be made for the imposition of the rules in this legislation.

Any law that intrudes unnecessarily on the functioning of voluntary associations is bad law, and that is what would be established if this bill were to pass into law. One of the aims of section 3 of the Employment Relations Act is “reducing the need for judicial intervention”. If this bill becomes an Act it is likely to lead to more legal challenges. It will create situations where employers could, potentially, use these provisions to challenge, delay, and harass unions that, for quite legitimate and decent reasons, were proposing strike action. The point has already been made, for example, that there is no countervailing requirement that the shareholders of a publicly listed company be obliged to conduct a vote and get a democratic majority position to impose a lockout on workers. One wonders why we would go down the path of imposing extra constraints on employees but not on employers.

Thirdly, the application of this law would be impractical. The Unite union made a very useful contribution pointing out that a union membership that consists largely of younger, particularly transient members who are dispersed geographically around the country would find it extremely difficult practically to hold a democratic vote to test the waters amongst their members.

There are issues about the consideration of health and safety. The bill purports to prevent employers from preventing a strike on health and safety issues. I recall an instance many years ago when a group of men went on strike because when they came to their break no hot food was available to them. There was something of a public outcry at what appeared to be quite a petty reason for strike action, but, in fact, those men were doing hard, physical work in a very cold environment. That example would be an interesting test of health and safety issues as we understand them now.

Clearly this legislation would create the opportunity for legislative mischief, for unreasonable and unsustainable challenges to the legal right of workers to withhold their labour when they deem that that is the last resort available to them to achieve decent salaries, wages, conditions, or whatever it might be. It boils down to a simple fact. This bill is unnecessary. It would impose costs and burdens unfairly and unreasonably, and the Greens will oppose it. Kia ora.

RAHUI KATENE (Māori Party—Te Tai Tonga) Link to this

The Māori Party, when it comes to the Employment Relations (Workers’ Secret Ballot for Strikes) Amendment Bill, has to admit to being really open to the possibility that it can either support or oppose the proposal to force unions to hold secret ballots on strike action. We start from the position that the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee has recommended that the bill be passed with amendments, such as the requirement for a union to hold a secret ballot before a strike, and before unlawful strikes or lockouts when in contravention of a preceding requirement.

The bill’s intention is very straightforward. It requires unions to hold a secret ballot for their members when voting on strike action. The Council of Trade Unions has signalled its support in principle for the bill. Its secretary, Peter Conway, has said that it largely reflects current practice. According to Andrew Little, secret ballots are already a core component of the New Zealand Amalgamated Engineering, Printing and Manufacturing Union’s rules, and in his view he presumes that some 95 percent of other unions are the same. Other big unions, like the 14,000-member Post Primary Teachers Association, are among those that already hold secret ballots.

Despite the status quo, in the Council of Trade Unions’ submission to the select committee the council called the bill “fundamentally unfair and practically flawed.” It concluded that “the Bill is little more than [a] cheap stunt and a poorly disguised attack on workers seeking to exercise their collective right to organise.” If that is support in principle, then I would be fascinated to see what the council’s opposition looks like. But, to be fair, the Council of Trade Unions—which, in its Māori arm of Te Kauae Kaimahi, represents approximately 60,000 Māori workers—really challenged us in our thinking about whether we should support or oppose this bill.

Although the Council of Trade Unions said that it would support the bill, the Unite union promoted much the same message but reached the decision that it should vote against the bill. Duncan Allan, a management representative from Unite, stated that the bill was unnecessary; it would stifle union members’ ability to take strike action, it was prejudiced against employees, and it breached the Employment Relations Act. Mr Allan advised the committee that the bill breached the Act in two ways. It contravened the principle of acknowledging and addressing the inherent inequality of power in employment relationships, and it was inconsistent with the move to reduce the need for judicial intervention. When we went to the National Distribution Union, its advice was absolutely clear-cut that we should not support this bill.

The contrary positions of these three leading union organisations leave us in a quandary about whether this bill has the appropriate balance. On the one hand, we must ask whether it is our business to interfere in the practices that unions seek to uphold. In Aotearoa, union membership is voluntary, and, as such, we believe that unions should be free to run their own organisations according to their own agreed rules. On the other hand, we could support secret ballots for strikes, as that merely represents the status quo of current practices amongst unions.

This question of balance deserves a little more thought, for although this bill focuses on the opportunities for workers to be involved in strike action, it could have required—but did not require—employers to follow democratic procedures, including holding a secret ballot of shareholders prior to a lockout. The Council of Trade Unions president, Helen Kelly, came out publicly and said that the bill fails to put the same onus on employers to ratify the lockout actions that have been used several times recently to force workers into accepting terms and conditions they do not want. That is right—that is from the Council of Trade Unions, the union organisation that is supporting this bill.

One of the key issues that the National Distribution Union raised as a concern was the fact that there has been no demonstrated pattern of unions engaging in strike action without a democratic mandate; that is simply not part of the worker history. This bill, therefore, provides a solution for an issue that does not actually emerge from an identified problem. What is even more fascinating about this bill, coming from a party that is supposedly opposed to nanny State intervention, is that it imposes another level of bureaucracy on the employment legislation paperwork. So this bill starts from a dubious base, introduces a laborious level of accountability for unions, and then produces a process by which the validity of legitimate votes in favour of strike action can be challenged.

But the issue that has made us the most concerned is the claim from various unions that this legislation unfairly and disproportionately impacts on low-income New Zealanders. It makes for a fairly dismal context to recall that the New Zealand income survey results for the June 2010 quarter showed that income had decreased since the June 2009 quarter. The median weekly income for all people decreased to $529, compared with the June 2009 quarter figure of $538 and the June 2008 quarter figure of $536. Why would we intentionally want to support legislation that the unions tell us could be disadvantageous for low-income workers when we could instead be putting our efforts into far more worthwhile projects, such as raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour? Our priority in employment legislation is that we give due consideration to initiatives that enhance labour relations rather than threaten to impact negatively on one side and advantage the other.

The Māori Party promotes a framework for labour relations that is mutually beneficial to the collective, and that encourages reciprocity and active participation on both sides of the employment continuum. We support people working together, we support exemplary employment standards, and we support a respectful environment that both is worker-friendly and avoids undue compliance costs for employers. For all these reasons, we have given this bill serious and due consideration. In the final estimation we come down more clearly in favour of the unions, which have shared their concerns about the adverse impact this bill would have on low-income workers. We are, therefore, opposed to this bill.

Dr JACKIE BLUE (National) Link to this

I am pleased to speak to the second reading of the Employment Relations (Workers’ Secret Ballot for Strikes) Amendment Bill. I support my colleague the Hon Tau Henare and I congratulate him on an excellent bill.

It is a very simple bill; it is a very straightforward bill. I am not sure why it is so contentious or why people have a problem with it. It provides transparency in a democratic process, and I ask who could argue with that. It is not anti-union; rather, it improves the process that many unions already have in place. We have heard that some unions do not conduct secret ballots as best practice. The bill is quite simple. It requires that unions have a secret ballot when their members vote to strike. Who could have a problem with that? It is transparency in a democratic process.

Strikes can be incredibly stressful for both workers and their families, particularly in this day and age. Strikes are often held as the last resort when all else fails, so they are held in an incredibly tense atmosphere. Strikes are not taken lightly, and not every worker will be in the same situation. Individual circumstances have to be taken into account. This bill proposes a protective mechanism so that workers will not feel intimidated about the way they want to vote, as far as the voting process goes. That process must be democratic, and this bill will ensure that it is democratic.

We heard from a number of submitters. I will make some comments on the submission of the Employers and Manufacturers Association (Northern). The association represents business interests throughout the upper half of the North Island. Overall, its members would collectively employ over 300,000 people. The association had some interesting comments. Its experience was that, on many occasions, employees came to employers to tell them that they did not wish to go on strike, or they cast doubt on the union’s decision to go on strike. They had concerns about what was being proposed.

CAROL BEAUMONT (Labour) Link to this

I rise to put it on the record that of course Labour supports democracy and supports secret ballots, as Labour members have said. It is true that we supported the referral of Tau Henare’s bill, the Employment Relations (Workers’ Secret Ballot for Strikes) Amendment Bill to the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee, so we could hear submissions and ensure that we were confident that secret ballots do occur in industrial action. Of course, that is overwhelmingly what was said to the select committee.

This is a nonsense bill. The bill is flawed, and in its original form it was a complete joke. It merely required a ballot to be taken; the ballot did not have to have any particular result. That showed how flawed the bill was. But the bill is also a cheap stunt, based on a flawed premise. It is based on the premise that union organisers, as the previous speaker, Dr Jackie Blue, said, force workers to take industrial action. The premise is that unions have to see the whites of employers’ eyes and have nothing personally to lose, but of course the poor old workers do. Well, the bill is based on a flawed premise, because we operate in an age of voluntary unionism. We operate in an age where secret ballots are absolutely, overwhelmingly the norm, so there is no problem to solve. No evidence was presented by officials of complaints that workers felt that they had been pressured into taking strike action. Very little actual evidence was presented by submitters that this was a problem. Some assertions were made by organisations like the Employers and Manufacturers Association, but there is no problem to solve.

This bill is just like Paul Quinn’s bill: it is all about ideology and about trying to be tough. This particular bill is based on Tau Henare’s experience in the 1980s. He cited in the media that one of the reasons for this bill was his own personal experience of standing over workers, to require them to take strike action. Of course, that was in an environment of compulsory unionism, and it was because he was being a bully. I have been a union organiser for many years—first of all, in an environment of compulsory unionism, and then, primarily and mainly, in an environment of voluntary unionism. I can say, as can most of my colleagues, that I have never stood over workers. But even if I had tried to stand over workers, they have their own minds. They can choose whether to be members of a union. As Jackie Blue did get right in her speech, people do not take strike action lightly, because it costs them money. It is hard to do, because it costs them money.

In an environment of voluntary unionism why would workers strike, when they can just leave the union if they want to? Workers take strike action when they are desperately trying to improve their appalling wages and conditions, or when their employer will not negotiate with them in good faith. If members on the other side of the House had taken the time to genuinely engage with union members, they would have found that the majority of union members in New Zealand have probably never taken strike action, and those who have would tell them that they took a secret ballot before they did. That is the experience, post the 1980s certainly. Tau Henare’s head is stuck in the 1980s, when he personally stood over workers and bullied them into taking strike action. He said that himself in the media.

I think it is very interesting—I am assuming this, of course, and I would love to be proven wrong—that the ACT Party will support this bill. Of course, ACT supposedly is the party of freedom, so I will be very interested to hear whether the ACT members rise to speak on this bill. Why do unions, as organisations, not have the freedom to determine their own rules and to have clearly set out in those rules—as most, if not all, of them do—provisions for secret ballots? Why does the Government have to intervene, to solve a problem that does not exist? The reason is that it is about freedom for everybody, except unions. Underlying this is in some cases a real hatred of, and certainly antipathy towards, unions by members on the other side of the House. Government members do not like unions. Why is that? The reason is quite clear: unions are about organising workers so that they can get a fairer deal—so that they can get a fair share of the pie.

I would just love to try to open the eyes of members on the other side of the House as to what a modern union looks like. I genuinely believe that most members on that side of the House are stuck in a time warp. They do not actually know what a modern union looks like. If somebody like Michael Woodhouse was honest, he would tell us that when dealing with organisations like the Nurses Organisation he has dealt with people who are very professional about their job, who care intensely about the sector that they work in, who resolve more disputes than they create, who ensure that the voices of their members are heard, who want to see their members get fair access to training and upskilling, and who have a view about how people in the health sector should be treated. Michael probably could tell us that, because he has dealt with modern unions in recent times. But, unfortunately, I think most people across the House are stuck in a time warp, based on the sorts of bully-boy tactics that Tau Henare exhibited in the Northern Clerical Workers Union in the 1980s. That is not the reality of a modern trade union. The shame is that members on the other side of the House are not taking the time to find out about the reality.

If this Government tried to find out about the reality, it would see that in order for us to change our workplaces, create workplaces that were really productive, and create the sort of economic growth that we want, workers have to be engaged, skilled, and involved, and have to have an independent voice. I put that challenge across to members on the other side of the House. This bill is based on a failed and flawed premise.

I have talked about my experiences. I have never, in all my years as a union official, stood over anybody. I have led strikes, and I have been involved in organising workers who have taken strike action, but I can say it was done democratically, it was done by a secret ballot, and it was done as a last resort. It was done because workers absolutely have the right to organise, to collectively bargain, and, in the absence of getting any progress through collective bargaining, to take strike action to put forward their case. We cannot force people to take strike action. It is nonsense to think we can force people to take strike action. Would we stand over them and physically push them out the door? Would we barricade the doors, so they could not get back into the workplace? How could we require them to stay out, when they did not want to? How could a union organiser imagine ever being able to organise that workplace again, in that circumstance? Of course he or she could not.

My colleague Darien Fenton touched on another issue: the problem with this bill is that it is unbalanced. It focuses solely on industrial disputation from the point of view of unions. It focuses on strikes, and it has no interest in dealing with the other side. The Employment Relations Act aligns strikes and lockouts. Where is there any similar limitation on employers taking industrial action? There is none. A number of submitters made that point. I have to comment on a very big lockout of recent times. It is true that lockouts are rarer than strikes, but they tend to be longer and more costly. The Progressive Enterprises distribution centre lockout cost the affected workers and their families thousands and thousands of dollars. They were locked out. Who made that decision? It probably was not the board of Progressive Enterprises; it certainly was not the shareholders. When the value of the shares in Progressive Enterprises—which is Foodtown and Countdown—went down, did those shareholders have any rights? Did they have any say in that lockout? No, they did not. So if this Government was serious about this issue, it would also be looking at that side of the equation.

We will see increasing disputation in this country. I predict that, and I am sure that I will be proved to be right. This Government is anti-union and anti-worker, and it is watching the gap between rich and poor grow. It is doing nothing to address the gap in wages between Australia and New Zealand. Hammering unions is the wrong way to go about closing that gap. If the Government was serious about addressing that issue, it would know that collective bargaining is the way to close the gap.

ALLAN PEACHEY (National—Tāmaki) Link to this

Well, I feel like I have just been subjected to a tutorial on 19th century class warfare. I thank the member who has just resumed her seat, Carol Beaumont, for that. It has brought home to me just how far the Labour Party has not come. What a mystery that party has become to me! Labour used to boast, and rightly so, about its origins amongst the working class of this country. What has it transformed itself into now? Well, that was never better illustrated than by the two previous Labour speeches: Labour is a party that has been reduced to representing the union organisers and bosses. I invite Ms Beaumont and Ms Fenton to spend a little bit of time out among the working-class people of the electorates they seem to be parading in.

LYNNE PILLAY (Labour) Link to this

I am pleased to stand alongside the other youngsters in the Labour Party and denigrate the Employment Relations (Workers’ Secret Ballot for Strikes) Amendment Bill. I was one of those people who had a bit of fun with this bill when it first came to the House. We knew that every union ran a secret ballot before a strike, and we thought it was all a bit of nonsense. But then, when the bill went to the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee and submitters pointed out the perils and the bureaucracy that the bill would bring about, common sense prevailed. I acknowledge my Labour colleagues and the Green Party. They listened to the majority of submitters and said that common sense had to prevail and that this bill should not proceed.

Mr Peachey, the great educationalist, put out a challenge to us. He told us to get in touch with workers. I can tell Mr Peachey that we have been in touch with education workers a lot over the last few weeks, from early childhood education workers through to tertiary education workers. We went to the early childhood teachers recently. There was a packed hall of about 300. They are so over this Government and the cuts to the quality of their teaching. Then we talked to the primary teachers. They are so over this Government. This is what the Government wants us to do to get in touch with workers. We got in touch with education workers. The Post Primary Teachers Association is in turmoil. So is the tertiary sector.

What we are seeing under this Government is more strife and turmoil, and more strikes, actually, than we have seen in the last 9 years. This shows the cheek of silly old Allan Peachey saying we are going backwards. Well, what did National do when it came into Government in the 1990s? It got rid of pay equity. It got rid of the Apprenticeship Act. It introduced the Employment Contracts Act. National is a party that goes “Kapow!” and flip-flops backwards. Its members cannot help themselves. Chester Borrows is looking nothing short of embarrassed. He is not a bad guy. He has to be the best select committee chairperson in this House.

MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National) Link to this

I am delighted to take the final call in the second reading of the Employment Relations (Workers’ Secret Ballot for Strikes) Amendment Bill. But as this is the first time I have spoken today I wonder whether Assistant Speaker Roy would indulge my acknowledging the people of Otago and Southland and the very good day this is for them. The South Island district health boards have unanimously endorsed the expert panel’s recommendations for the future of neurosurgical services. This is really a victory for common sense and for clinical safety and viability, but, most of all, for people power and for the huge amount of support that was galvanised behind the issue and the success of the campaign. The expert panel acknowledged that were it not for that, the outcome might well have been different.

I will address the issue of my relationship with unions. Ms Beaumont is absolutely correct. I have a very, very good relationship with unions; I regard them fondly. They make good managers’ lives easier. When those relationships work well, they work very well. But like any organisation, even unions can have their problems internally. I congratulate the Opposition on being an Opposition, even when that flies in the face of absolutely everything it believes in. It believes in democracy, and it believes in the International Labour Organization conventions that say this is a good thing to do. But it is also a case of “If you’re a sinner, you must have sinned.”—if this bill is being brought forward by National, it cannot possibly be a good idea. I think it is a terrible shame that in its efforts to be a good Opposition it cannot do the common-sense thing, like the expert panel did, and look at the issues and support this bill on its merits.

As members know, I am a rugby referee. I still get the odd game in; in fact even Mr Mallard has run touch for me on the odd occasion when I have been refereeing Hutt Old Boys Marist. One of the things players always say to me is: “Whether you get it right or get it wrong, at least be consistent.” That I think is a message and a lesson that that party and its supporter unions could take on board.

I will give members a couple of examples. I was fascinated by the Unite union campaigning outside Television New Zealand, demanding the immediate sacking of Paul Henry. It wanted instant dismissal—no rights of process, no rights of natural justice; it wanted just to get rid of him. It did not matter about the merits of the case or whether it was valid. There was a union that said that employee has no rights. I think we also heard that in select committee, where we are simultaneously hearing the Employment Relations Amendment Bill (No 2), and in particular the extension of the 90-day probation period. Members on the other side will recall asking employer associations what would happen to an employee when applying for a job if the employer said that there was a 90-day provision and the employee said they did not like that. The answer was that the prospective employee was free not to accept the job on those terms. Oh, how terrible! Oh, is that not absolutely appalling?

I compare that with what we heard Carol Beaumont say tonight, and the Service and Food Workers Union repeated it in submissions on this bill. When we asked what would happen to an employee, a member of a union, who did not like the rules that required an open process, Ms Beaumont said they were free to leave. So that was it: take it or leave it. Members opposite should at least be consistent. This bill is a principled approach and a good idea. If it codifies what is exactly happening in practice, why on earth do they oppose it? There is still time for Labour to support this bill. It is a good bill and I certainly support it.

Hon TAU HENARE (National) Link to this

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