New workers also need access to sick leave, union says

The union says all workers need to be able to access sick leave. Photo / 123RF

The Council of Trade Unions (CTU) is calling on Parliament to ditch the rule that requires workers to be employed for six months before they can get sick leave.

A bill to double employees' sick leave entitlements from five days to 10 is before a select committee.

The CTU presented on the topic to the Education and Workforce committee during the week.

Its secretary, Melissa Ansell-Bridges, said people need to be able to access sick leave, no matter how long they have been working in the role.

She said the bill shows the doubled sick leave would not be mandatory for businesses for another two years.

Ansell-Bridges said more urgency is needed and that recent opinion polls show the public supports this.

More than 1200 people responded to an online poll by the CTU from 3-6 January this year about the impact of Covid-19 on people's working life.

Overwhelmingly, 94 percent of people supported the government's planned increase in sick leave from five to 10 days.

The Government's decision to double minimum sick leave will cost a billion dollars a year, nearly 1 per cent of the country's annual wage bill, and will be borne by employers, according to Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment estimates.

The increase from a minimum of five to 10 days of annual sick leave, for which a bill was introduced in December, is the second and by far the most expensive of Labour's three main labour-market policy changes promised in the 2020 election.

The extra sick leave is estimated to cost more than the minimum wage increase and the new Matariki holiday combined.

A 5.8 per cent rise in the minimum wage is scheduled for April 1; the sick leave increase is expected to come into effect in the second half of 2021; and Labour promised a new public holiday at Matariki from 2022.

About half of New Zealand employers currently give their staff the statutory minimum.