National to crack down on unions

National says union militancy has increased through the powers given to it in the Employment Contracts Act and it would curb it in a new law called the Employment Agreements Act.

Among its provisions, it would remove stress as a ground for employees to take action against their employer under health and safety laws.

Industrial relations spokesman Wayne Mapp said that it had become an "easy option in employment disputes for an employee to claim work-related stress as the reason for non-performance".

"It is easy to assert and difficult to disprove," Mr Mapp said yesterday.

It would also repeal the requirement to have employee representation on health and safety issues in workplaces of more than 30 employees.

"These positions are often taken by union officials and are used as another bludgeon to intimidate workers.

"If you give power to the unions, they will use it," Mr Mapp said.

He said the changes to the Holidays Act that gave employees who worked on statutory holiday time and a half and a day in lieu was "simply too much" and the cost of it was harming many businesses. National would review statutory holiday pay.

It also intends to introduce the option of a no-risk 90-day probation period for new workers, a move it says would reduce barriers to employment.

National's new act would take the best features of the Employment Contracts Act 1991 and the Employment Relations Act 2000. It would repeal all measures added to the 2000 act last year to overhaul the Holidays Act.

Mr Mapp said National's policy was aimed at boosting productivity in workplaces.

The growth of the last few years had gone into increasing the labour force, not making the existing workplace more productive.

The outcome might be lower unemployment but it had also meant lower growth in incomes than Australia.

The after-tax income gap between Australia and New Zealand had grown from $5000 in 1999 to $9000 and that was explained by differences in productivity growth: about 1.5 per cent A YEAR in New Zealand compared with 2.5 per cent in Australia.

Mr Mapp attacked the "one size fits all" campaign of the Engineering, Printing and Manufacturing Union (EPMU) for a 5 per cent increase in collective agreements.

The EPMU and the Council of Trade Unions attacked National's policy as "union-bashing".

EPMU national secretary Andrew Little said National failed to understand that the present level of industrial unrest "is being driven by workers who are angry that they have been getting low or even no pay rises at a time when the country is booming".

CTU president Ross Wilson said taking away union rights was also an attack on human rights.

"National wants to take us back to the adversarial days of the 1990s with the type of policies that have left us with the low wages and skill shortages that slow economic and social development today."

Rejigged recipe

The National Party is promising to overhaul employment law and reform workplace legislation. Measures include:

* An end to the exclusive right of unions to negotiate collective agreements and workplace access rights.
* Remove the requirement of employers to front up to multi-employer talks.
* Remove the automatic right of union access to workplaces.
* Removal of a 30-day period in which new employees can choose a collective or individual contract.
* Reduce the extra rates and leave employees earn through working on statutory holidays.