Good on you for actually taking a stand with action instead of empty rhetoric. Apparently the last time the herald showed its right bias it had to retreat because of just such action. Good on you!

In fact you have inspired me. Even though I only read it online, it still contributes to their revenue and rankings. I am going to remove it from my bookmarks now.
If they want to rebrand themselves as a right wing rag, then so be it. I don’t read them.

It ain’t much, but its a start.

However, due to modern technology, we monitor our workers out in the field extensively, and if anything ‘doesnt look right’ it is very quickly dealt with. (we even hire workers full time to do the monitoring).

My company has had no trouble dismissing workers who consistently mis-perform, or who display flagrant disregard for company rules and procedures, who are dishonest.

We have a robust dissmissal procedure, with clear rules about serious misconduct in our contracts, and while there are hoops to jump through (like a hearing), when it is put in motion, the worker is pretty much gone by lunchtime.

In short, as long as there is clear rules about what warrants a sacking, etc, there is no need for this law.

All this does is promote a throwaway culture where workers are nothing more than warm bodies to be replaced at will, and that the lowest common demoninator becomes hiring a worker solely because you can get rid of them in 90 days if ‘it doesnt work out’. And if all employers think their workers are just going to be lazy ungreatful slackers who will steal anything that is not nailed down, then our business community needs to take a long look at itself in the mirror.

This proposed law is going to hit the people who work in the retail and hospitality the most, the young, single working mothers, the unskilled etc and so on. A lot of them are already treated worse than sweatshop workers in China, and this will make the situation much much more harsh for them. Given that it doesnt take much training to wait tables or operate a till, the whole ‘invest a lot of time and training’ line doesnt wash. A single mother who waitresses, for example, can be sacked merely because she had to pick her sick child up from school, and she can have no comeback, if it is in the 90-day trial period. Down the road, with out any redress. Is this what people want? Its not what I want. Thats why we have such laws, to make sure people are protected from dismissal because the boss doesnt like their tie colour.

I dont see how eroding workers protections and wages and conditions to sweatshop level is going to help anyone. If anything, it will just create more disloyal staff.

I do like your rules.. automatic dole and database thing is a great idea. Would you expect the database of employers to be publicly available or just to someone like Department of Labour?

My only concern is that:

“Hopefully a consultation process can be followed to protect against these. Transparency of the process would be good”

I cant see a heck of a lot of consulation going on if the 90 day bill is part of Keys “100 Day Plan” – is it?

Plus the fact that you mention 2 forms to fill out (Sounds fine to me)…. but how would it sound to the Minister of Regulatory Reform, Rodney ‘Razor’ Hide?

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I like the rules you propose, I just cant help but think the likelihood of any such rules to be placed with the bill are very slim. If the nats are smart they will try and make the bill appeal to workers, but I think they’ll naturally just make it appeal to their mates the employers.

I feel that there needs to be rules put in place for this legislation to go through. Most of the rules can be based on these very comments. Robinsod provided great evidence of legislation working in practice ‘Righties: How ’bout this: http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominionpost/4781380a6479.html'. The appropriate rules should be in place to protect employees against the bad few employers.

A couple off the top of my head:

If stood down during the 90 day period, you are reinstated to the dole immediately. I.e. the week after your last paycheck. – This should encourage people on the dole to go for work knowing they won’t be without an income if it doesn’t work out. It should add to an employees sense of security.

When dismissing an employee within the 90 day period, a form should be completed and a copy given to the employee as well as sent to the relevant department. This form should have the company number and respective decision making managers name on it, as well as other relevant information regarding reason for termination of employment. A simple search of the database can be automatically performed to find companies that have dismissed x number of employees within the 90 days period over a certain amount of time. These will be flagged for further investigation with appropriate measures to prosecute offending employers, and compensation to be paid to the employees caught effected by these employers. (aimed to protect against employers who seek to abuse the system of just hiring casual staff for low skilled jobs)

The form should another form to follow it for the employer to complete that they then went out and rehired another employee. (aimed to prevent the ‘hire 8, keep the best 5′, ‘ and ‘speculative hiring’)

The forms should also pick up business owners that are hiring through idiocy and the managers that are incompetent. The industry I am in sells to SME’s. I’ve seen very dumb employers and it’s a lot more common than we’d like to think. The most common, and it’s reasonably common, are the people that open retail stores, spend the money as it comes in to the till on themselves, then 3-6 months later when bills start having to be paid, wonder where their cash is to pay them. 3 months after that, they’re out of business. This process could pick some of these up and advice can be given on companies to contact for business advice.

I like the fact that this is for organisations with 20 or less people in them. I agree that larger companies have experienced HR departments and the onus lies with them to sort out. However there will need to be some rules developed whereby companies that are franchises can’t slip under the radar. (like the Subway example someone gave earlier)

There are probably many more points. Hopefully a consultation process can be followed to protect against these. Transparency of the process would be good, but if there was transparency, would we choose to follow it?

(obviously not at employees expense tho ay)

imagine for a second what the situation would be like if the settings were such that it was made as easy as possible, and perhaps even enjoyable, to be an employer.

All that rubbish about employers “being fair” is just crap. Yes, most employers are fair. No, they are not ALL fair. What is also crap is that you cannot get rid of bad employees.
(You can’t treat them like crap and then sack them because you had a bad day or were hung over, yes. )

What is worse is that it is inexperienced small business owners that can be the worst offenders. Large organisations have HR departments and experienced managers. Small businesses can have tin pot dictators.
I have hired and managed staff, run a small business AND been a union rep in my career and I can quite honestly say I have “seen it all”. Both sides.
I am as pissed off with lazy or exploitative employees as employers. (moreso with the employees in fact because they as used as annecdotes to harm other good people)

However, here are the scenarios that WILL occur and why this is a bad idea:

Speculative hiring (aka employees as unkowing venture capatalists):
- Hiring staff before you are 50-80% sure you will need them. Many small companies are (or are like) startups. In this scenario you could take on staff before you actually are sure you can keep them on. (seen this one myself in current situation)

Over hiring (aka survivor island):
- hire 8 new people in the knowledge you only need 5 and keep the best.

Short term hiring (aka cheaper than contractors)
- Temps and contractors are paid extra (supposedly) for their temporary nature. (seen this one myself in current situation)

Idiocy (aka idiocy)
- You should not have been hiring. (seen this one myself in current situation)

Believe me, I have seen and heard FAR WORSE than this. I don’t believe for a second that these will not happen. Also not that I have seen most of these scenarios in the CURRENT environment where it was not as profitable. (usually due to idiocy, but now it will be good business strategy in many cases)

Also note that these situations can be spun/organised so that they are NOT detrimental to the company.

I can elaborate on the examples I have seen in the current environment, but I am not sure that it is necessary or that most people will not have seen it themselves.

Oh well, good news for lawyers anyway…

On the other hand: Ive seen some Piss poor workers in my time, and like the earlier comment someone said, I’m sick of picking up the extra work they dont do. So like the righties here the bill COULD solve that.

I don’t see why anyone would be afraid to fire a worker who was obviously not doing a good job. The protections for workers are mostly around being wrongfully dismissed, ie. where there is no performance-based reason. It should be relatively easy to prove if there is a performance-based reason, even in a small workplace that keeps less detailed records.

I don’t see how allowing employers to wrongfully dismiss their workers within the first 90 days helps anyone, and were we not headed for a period with high unemployment anyway, it might have made it quite hard to find workers for certain jobs.

Perhaps they should outlaw paying wages….just chain them to he work area and supply nappies so they dont wast time by going to the dunny!

Each time i see people agreeing with that sort of National right wing crap it only make me realise how screwed up the world it!