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Hon Kate Wilkinson Minister of Labour, 30 October 2012
Media Statement
Changes to Part 6A approved by Cabinet

Cabinet has agreed to further improvements to the Employment Relations Act 2000, including changes to Part 6A that deals with the cleaning, catering, orderly and laundry industries, Labour Minister Kate Wilkinson said today.
The objective of Part 6A is to provide continuity of employment for employees in specific industries when a business is restructured or sold.
“A review of Part 6A found that there were significant operational issues around transferring employees’ entitlements and information to the new employer,” Ms Wilkinson says.
“Proposed amendments will fix these issues and provide more certainty and clarity for employers while at the same time protecting key benefits for affected employees.
In addition, the review found that while larger businesses had been able to adapt better to the requirements of Part 6A, small and medium sized businesses faced greater proportional costs.
“For example, a husband and wife cleaning team who tender and win a small contract may be currently required to take on any staff doing the work under the previous contract owner.
“That’s why Cabinet has also agreed to exempt small and medium businesses – those with fewer than 20 employees – from the provisions of Part 6A where the SME is the incoming employer.”
Employees in small and medium enterprises account for approximately a quarter of those in affected industries.
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In response, NZ Council of Trade Unions secretary Peter Conway said:

” Currently employers are required to offer new employees the same terms as the collective agreement that covers their work for the first 30 days of their employment. The Government proposes to remove this requirement. In her first cabinet paper, Minister Wilkinson notes that removing this requirement “will enable employers to offer individual terms and conditions [to the new employee] that are less than those in the collective agreement.”

In contracting out situations, the current law providers strong protection for workers that are particularly vulnerable to exploitation those in cleaning and food services plus some caretaking, orderly and laundry services. Under Part 6A of the Employment Relations Act, if these services are contracted out the workers can choose to transfer to the new employer with the same terms and conditions of employment. The protections in part 6A were introduced in 2004 following a review in 2001 that found certain employers were forcing vulnerable workers to either accept worse terms and conditions when they took over a business or lose their jobs. 65% of these vulnerable workers are women and Maori and Pasifika are over-represented. Many earn close to the minimum wage.

It is proposed that incoming employers with less than 20 employees (Small to Medium Enterprises or SMEs) should be exempt from all of the Part 6A requirements. According to the Ministry of Economic Development, 31% of all employees are currently employed by SMEs. SMEs will have a significant incentive to undercut other tenderers by cutting employees terms and conditions. The CTU believes that this is a ‘race to the bottom’ that mistreats some of our most vulnerable workers”

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Kate Wilkinson’s announcement is bad news for the working class. Fewer rights for any worker on any job drags the rest of us down.

Why did it happen?

What should we do about it?

What powered the Minister’s arm?

There will be muttering in some union offices about the wicked mendacity of the present National Party-led government. Accusations of ideologically driven Tory attacks, enacted out of habitual inclination, a snap of ingrained spite.

Take me out and shoot me if you like but I would rather lay the blame for this setback on the union movement and its class.

As anyone who has been there as a protagonist knows, the field of capitalist industrial relations is in practice a jungle , where the weakest goes to the wall. Appeals for justice for “vulnerable workers” have no more meaning than Santa Claus in the face of international market prices falling.

The government has picked up and acted on an employers’ grievance because the employers squeaked their wheel; they then got the grease.

On our side of the fence we have by and large quietly accepted little crumbs and got on with our daily tasks uncomplainingly. We workers have not employed our most potent weapon of unity, come together and made a collective nuisance of ourselves. We have not energetically and with menaces demanded more, consequently, we have at our fringes been picked out as the weak wildebeest, who can be brought down as an easy vulnerable kill.

Just what, exactly, does it mean to speak of “vulnerable workers” ?

The expression is a stock phrase in modern union terminology.

Are we talking about feeble-minded half-witted physically disabled people?

No.

So why are they “vulnerable” and what are they vulnerable to?

The question is never asked. It is as if these workers are victims of an act of God.

In a way, they are.

Our God today, the final ruler over the state of our lives, is the capitalist system.

In real terms, I submit that “vulnerable workers” are isolated toilers on small sites, able to be easily replaced because they do essential unpleasant manual work at anti social hours in a labour market where such work currently attracts a low wage.

“Vulnerable workers” are vulnerable to the dictates of capitalism, their being is a constant accusation against the present economic and social system.

This fact needs to be recognised and acted on.

Peter Conway and anyone else who gives a stuff about “vulnerable workers” need to take the next logical step, sheet home the blame to the capitalist system and then try to set about seeing how we can get rid of this vulture of the vulnerable.

The first step in that direction is for the union movement to lose the sorry useless appellation ‘Vulnerable workers”.However well intentioned, the expression is disempowering and an insult.

In terms of a step forward “Insufficiently organised workers” is the only true expression.

We will stop getting kicked around when we stand up together.

Neither the meek, nor the vulnerable, will inherit the earth.

ENDs

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