International

Kiwi Reforms To Spark Union Revival

The head of the New Zealand trade union movement is optimistic that workers will come back to unions once a fair industrial relations framework is put in place.

CTU President Ross Wilson says: "We have every reason to believe that in a neutral environment employees will see the sense of bargaining collectively.

"Why are employers hostile to collective bargaining? Because it's effective. This legislation is also saying is that there is another party to the business of employment relationships and that is the employee."

Speaking at Parliament on 14 March, the day the government's Employment Relations Bill was tabled, Ross said that he hopes that the Act will open the way for a new kind of union.

"We would like to see an influx of new members and that would change the face of unions - younger workers, Pacific Island workers - the law has the potential to make great changes."

Andrew Little of the Engineer's Union emphasised the lack of choice workers suffered under the Employment Contracts Act. He said that in one workplace an engineers' union delegate, who increased the number of union members on his job from 3 to 90, was sacked and each of the new members was taken aside and asked if they thought it was their best interests to belong to the union.

Similarly, In the recent meat workers dispute Ross Wilson said that workers were offered incentives to leave the union.

CTU economist, Peter Conway, said that the old approach to employment relations was heralded as bringing with it labour productivity and efficiency. It has been a failure on both counts, he said. New Zealand now ranks 23rd out of 26 OECD countries and our high unemployment levels are hardly a sign of labour market efficiency.

"Are workers part of the economy? We say yes," he said.

"The quality of employment has deteriorated," Peter said. "And even though the hourly rate has gone up, incomes have fallen. The average rates don't capture the greater gap between those on higher incomes and lose on lower incomes."

"The ECA encouraged employers to focus on reducing unit labour costs and to take their eye off all of the other things that make people productive. We are not asserting that there is a strong relationship between this legislation and productivity - we are simply saying that we do not think the figures show that the intended aims of economic efficiency under the ECA were achieved. In fact we are saying that It failed miserably.

"We do believe the new law will encourage increased loyalty, trust and confidence in relationships between employers and employees so people will be more prepared to go the extra distance. This, combined with more emphasis on skills training and innovation, will probably have a positive effect on the economy."

"Workers who were, in effect, prevented from joining a union in the past will now have an opportunity to join," Ross Wilson said.

"The Workplace Relations Bill is a pure bargaining model based on international rights guarantees under the ILO. It gives a secure base to build industrial relations law if you have a government that respected those requirements."

"There is nothing compulsory about this law - the responsibility is on unions to organise workers into unions. All we ask is respect for collective bargaining and organising in law.

"The law also has the potential to encourage new unions to be established provided they can be democratic and independent of employer influence."

The CTU does not anticipate that multi-employer bargaining will occur quickly in any areas, Ross said.

"Many workers are committed to their own enterprise agreements. At the same time it has the potential for workers in workplaces where they are more vulnerable to get together."

He believes that there has been a suppression of strike action over the past few years.

"But the new legislation has very heavily emphasised good faith requirements and mediation, which will require a focused approach to endeavouring to reach agreement before strikes or lockouts take place."

Joanna Beresford of the NZEI pointed out that the education sector took unprecedented levels of strike action under the ECA and Ross pointed out that the same could be said for the Nurses Organisation.

"Really it's going to depend to a very large extent on the employers' approach to this legislation."

A reporter asked whether Max Bradford had a point about 'compulsory union membership by the back door' or whether Ross thought it was 'the line they are running.'

"I think it's the line they are running," Ross said. "It's disappointing really - all we are asking for is a real choice for workers. "

"We don't need compulsory unionism. We simply need a neutral environment with some protections for collective bargaining and organising. English law has never been sympathetic to protections for the collective so you do need statute law to provide that degree of protection.

"This bill is fundamentally important for workers," Ross said. "The ILO has a convention that says that union rights to organise and bargain collectively should be recognised. These rights were taken away by the Employment Contracts Act. In 1994 the ILO sent a mission to New Zealand and fond that the Employment Contracts Act breached that law in several fundamental respects. So we are coming back to the mainstream internationally into an environment where there is greater fairness in the law than covers workplace bargaining."

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  Issue 46 contents

»	Carr Vows to Move on Casuals
»	NSW Government in Hot Seat Over Individual Contracts
»	Telstra Troubleshooter Bombs Stellar
»	Illegal immigrants Working Next Door to PM
»	Education Department Hit By Massive Fine
»	Victims Comp Changes Exclude Traumatised Worker
»	SOCOG Agrees: Ceremonies Not an Eisteddfod
»	Senate Guts 'Ships from Hell' Bill
»	Campaigners Seek Dissident Web Domains

»	The Soapbox
»	The Locker Room
»	Trades Hall
»	Tool Shed

»	The Real Big Fella
»	That's It For Labor
»	Join Australia's Gas Out
»	Tribute to Jennie

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