An embarrassing effort

Ever since the Herald lost its rag over the EFA I’ve come to expect little more than half-truths and inaccuracies from its editorials, but today’s effort was particularly disappointing.

Business NZ press release in one hand and a keyboard in the other, the Herald had itself all wound up over suggestions that proposed minimum entitlements to meal and refreshment breaks might compel workers to take breaks against their will.

Of course, this concern might be valid if it were even remotely true, but it’s not. As this blog and others have noted, minimum entitlements simply provide a right to take a break, not a compulsion to do so; a rather simple concept that renders the Herald’s entire argument nonsensical.

A few paragraphs in and the Herald was at it again, claiming the change will be “largely academic” because collective agreements “currently govern rest and meal breaks for most workers.” This is just idiotic. Collective agreements cover only 20% of New Zealand workers, and just 12% in the private sector that’s why the legislation is being introduced in the first place.

The Herald went on to argue that because refreshment breaks have not been guaranteed in law it ‘probably suggests little need was seen for it.’ Again, this is bollocks. The right to meal and refreshment breaks was enshrined in law for most of the last century and was only taken away in the 1990s when National abolished the Awards system and repealed the Factories and Commercial Premises Act.

I know it’s basic stuff, but you’d think the senior editorial staff at our country’s largest daily could at least get their facts right. This kind of effort is just embarrassing for everyone.