By PAULA OLIVER
The employment agreements of all salaried workers will have to be re-worded to recognise that the person is being paid time-and-a-half for public holidays.
The murky position of salaried workers and penal rates has been clarified by a clause the transport and industrial relations select committee added to the
Holidays Bill.
The legislation, which the Government hopes will come into effect on April 1 next year, requires that all workers be paid time-and-a-half for public holidays. They will also receive another day off.
That provision raised concerns among employer representatives, who claimed it could be interpreted as meaning employers had to pay salaried workers penal rates on top of a salary.
After hearing submissions, the select committee clarified the issue by replacing the clause in question with another.
The new one states that new and existing employment agreements must "include a provision that confirms the right of the employee to be paid at least the portion of the employee's relevant daily pay plus half that rate again for work on a public holiday".
Business NZ executive director Anne Knowles said yesterday that the new clause meant that the wording of agreements had to be changed.
But employers who already had penal rates and other payments factored into salary agreements only needed to clarify that rather than pay more.
Employers still faced a significant increase for waged employees.
The select committee chairman, Labour MP Mark Gosche, said the new clause was intended to simplify the salary issue.
Gosche said he expected that the clause would work in a "straightforward" manner once it became law.
But the National Party industrial relations spokesman, Roger Sowry, said he thought the entire Holidays Bill was confusing.
"This bill was supposed to tidy up the act. I don't think it's made it less complicated. I think most employers, when they start to work with this legislation, will find it confusing."
The Government wants to pass the bill before Christmas.
