New jobs law 'ticket to ride'

By AUDREY YOUNG

Parts of the new employment law will be "a lawyers' Mercedes-Benz fund," says National MP Max Bradford.

And, he says, they won't have to be content with one luxury car.

Employment lawyers will be able to make enough money litigating the unfair bargaining clause for their first Mercedes-Benz.

"Then they can roam across to another part of the legislation to make enough money to buy a second Mercedes-Benz," Mr Bradford told Parliament.

MPs are expected to sit well into today and possibly on Monday as debate on the committee stages of the Employment Relations Bill continues.

Mr Bradford and Act MP Rodney Hide argued yesterday that the bill would discourage employers from hiring staff, especially young workers.

The bill says that if the parties agree that a worker is subject to a probationary period, it must be stated in the employment agreement, and that the probationary provision shall not affect the law relating to unjustifiable dismissal during or at the end of the probationary period.

Rodney Hide said the probationary provision would be devastating for young workers on the margins of society.

"They are the young men or young women who have grown up rough, who've got tattoos across their forehead, who haven't got a work history, who haven't got experience.

"They come to you wanting a job. They have no reference, they have no CV, they have no qualifications.

"You'd like to believe you can trust them.

"You want to give them a job but only under one condition - that it's probationary, that if it doesn't work out the job goes.

"If you can't do it on the probationary basis, you will discriminate."

Associate minister Laila Harre said the probationary provisions were critical.

"Imagine the humiliation and the gut-wrenching disillusionment for a 16 or 17-year-old to be sent down the road after three months with no explanation, no proper procedure.

"All this bill requires is that they be given a fair go and a fair level of support in that three months, and there is not an evasion of personal grievance protection."

She was astounded that the Opposition would oppose a part of the bill that strengthened the rights of individuals.

Earlier in the day, Labour Minister Margaret Wilson told The Economist conference in Wellington that she expected the number of workers in unions to to rise from about 20 per cent of the workforce to about 30 per cent.

Questioned about unions that had reportedly told employers they were going "to get you" under the new law, she said she had also heard of employers who had vowed to provoke unions to strike in order to sabotage the law.

Some unions were locked in the past, she said, but there were employers like that, too, and their "death rattle" continued in a bid to try to stop the bill.