Darien Fenton: Tired arguments fail to impress

COMMENT

We note a slight deviation to the scaremongering attempts of Business NZ and friends around employment law reform by inviting a European "expert", Alan Wild, to New Zealand to tell us the world will end. In other words, business costs will skyrocket and organisations will be "very reluctant to re-tender".

There are several difficulties with this. The first is credibility. When Business NZ told us in 2000 of the dire consequences of the Employment Relations Bill, of course it was wrong and nothing dreadful happened.

Why should we now believe the same worn-out line, particularly when it comes from a European perspective far removed from our own experience and with little reference to the actual legislative provision?

Most people will not.

The second difficulty is relevance. Mr Wild, we invite you to read the proposed bill. Our own indigenous solution to the problem of job insecurity and exploitation of vulnerable low-paid workers only protects a specifically defined group at the very moment when the service transfers from one company to another. It does not prevent restructuring outside of that moment. It will not drive up wages and conditions because those will remain to be collectively or individually bargained with the employer.

Mr Wild complains that it's hard to get contractors to bid when staff are relatively highly paid. Well, that is not the case here. The bill covers only cleaners, food workers, caretakers, laundry workers and orderlies.

The wage rates for these workers begin at the minimum wage (at the moment $8.50) and few are paid more than two-thirds of the average wage. Most have no redundancy compensation, no penal rates for the night or weekend work and minimum entitlements to sick leave and holidays. They have no financial cushion when they lose their jobs at a moment's notice, which can happen frequently and at any time, including a week before Christmas.

The third difficulty is reality. Wild refers to sitting in Asia considering investment in New Zealand and being put off by the protective law contained in the bill. Well, we challenge Mr Wild to come up with any examples of companies that have refused to invest in New Zealand because it is too expensive to hire or contract a cleaner.

In addition, in New Zealand, multinational companies dominate the service industries and these are massive profit-making companies. They are in it for the money and there is money to be made in the cleaning of commercial buildings, the feeding of hospital patients and the maintenance of schools.

Get real! The provisions in the bill are not going to discourage any of these companies from tendering for contracts - they will just build in or assimilate the costs, which are likely to be minimal in monetary terms.

For instance, these employers already pay rates and conditions to commercial cleaners set out in an industry collective agreement. There will not be any additional costs there.

The real human benefit, however, is the security for thousands of service workers knowing that the next time the work they are performing comes up for re-tender they will not lose their job, will not be discriminated against because of their union activities, age or race, will not lose their sick leave entitlements or become critically stressed because they are suddenly unemployed and can't pay their rent or feed their children. Those things, Mr Wild, are what we in New Zealand believe are of fundamental importance.

* Darien Fenton is national secretary of the Service & Food Workers Union.