PSA MEDIA RELEASE

Oct 28th, 2011

For Immediate Use

National’s employment policy rings hollow of jobs

National’s plan to lower wages and weaken employees’ terms and conditions of work will do nothing to strengthen the economy or create jobs, says the PSA.

The National Party’s employment relations election policy, announced by John Key earlier today, includes restrictions on collective bargaining and reductions on wages for young people.

“This is a hollow policy and it won’t create jobs as National claims,” says PSA National Secretary Richard Wagstaff.

“The plan transfers the risks of doing business onto some of the most vulnerable in society – young people – by paying them less than the minimum wage, potentially until they are twenty.

“Cutting young people’s pay is more likely to drive them overseas – where more high-skilled, high-wage jobs exist – than strengthen New Zealand’s economy.

“We’ve seen thousands of public sector jobs and services go since the National-led Government came to power three years ago, but very little vision on how to build a truly modern public sector that values its workers and best serves New Zealanders.

“This policy extends National’s scythe to the wider employment sector.

“Finance Minister Bill English has already said how proud he is that New Zealand is a low wage economy. Families struggling to get by on inadequate wages are unlikely to share his pride.

“Now his party wants to further erode people’s employment terms and conditions by attacking collective bargaining.

“This plan allows employers to opt out of multi-employer collective agreements – a form of bargaining that has proved highly successful in the health sector and is one of the most efficient and least time-consuming methods of negotiating.

“It also allows employers to walk away from the bargaining table before concluding agreements, cut pay for low-level industrial action and not cover new employees under collective agreements for the first 30 days of employment.

“All this serves to further knock the balance in bargaining towards the employer, in an already unequal relationship, just like every other employment relations change this Government has made. Is this really the kind of society we want New Zealand to be?” says Richard Wagstaff.

ENDS

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