Written By: - Date published: 11:54 am, June 9th, 2011 - 40 comments
Fire at will was meant to help young people into work, wasn’t it?
Written By: - Date published: 7:18 am, April 1st, 2011 - 71 comments
Today National has a terrible April Fools for workers around Aotearoa: 90 day fire-at-will, reduced union access, sick notes after 1 day and minimum wage up a pittance. Workers are doing it tough already, and now National’s turning the screw.
Written By: - Date published: 7:00 am, February 4th, 2011 - 64 comments
The NZIER recently popped up with a study purporting to show that the “90-day trial period” (the fire at will bill) is “working”. The study and its conclusions have since been widely quoted. Unfortunately the conclusions are a load of nonsense. NZIER have committed the amateur hour mistake of seeing the cause that they want to see.
Written By: - Date published: 11:11 am, January 13th, 2011 - 35 comments
The CTU have launched the latest of their quirky and cute campaigns. Job Survivor Island illustrates the effects on real people of the boss being able to sack you without cause while you are denied legal redress. 1 in 5 workers are sacked under fire at will. Don’t become one of them, resist fire at …
Written By: - Date published: 10:30 am, November 24th, 2010 - 32 comments
As of April 1 next year, I’m going to be a whole lot less confident moving to a new job. If I do, I’ll probably find the new contract gives the boss the right to fire me without giving me the right to justice if the firing is unfair. Reducing workers’ confidence to change jobs is just one of the stupid consequences of universal Fire at Will.
Written By: - Date published: 10:22 am, November 12th, 2010 - 46 comments
The Nats are determined to push through more attacks on the rights of working New Zealanders. The latest stories of abuse of the Fire at Will law to emerge involve a chef who ‘who used too much sauce’ and a dairy worker who stood up for an abused immigrant worker. The Nats want all of us to be subject to Fire at Will. Our job is to fight back.
Written By: - Date published: 1:50 pm, August 25th, 2010 - 15 comments
Heather Smith, the pharmacy worker who was sacked unfairly under the 90 day fire at will law and featured in a recent advert for the campaign has won a CTU-backed case against her employer in the Employment Court.
Written By: - Date published: 1:54 pm, August 20th, 2010 - 54 comments
Workers are getting together to oppose the government’s changes to employment law with rallies in the four main centres this weekend. Join your rally.
The Saturday rallies against National’s anti-work rights bill assemble at:
Auckland, QE2 Square, bottom of Queen St – 1pm
Wellington, Civic Square – 1pm
Christchurch, Catherdal Square – 1pm
and on Sunday:
Dunedin, Dental School, Great King St – 11am
Written By: - Date published: 7:09 am, August 13th, 2010 - 135 comments
John Key challenged the unions to “put up or shut up”. So they’re going to put up. The CTU has launched a campaign to name and shame businesses that are abusing the fire at will (90 day probation) bill. It’s a campaign based around personal stories. Heather Smith tells the first of many…
Written By: - Date published: 4:33 pm, August 9th, 2010 - 29 comments
Unions are getting together to oppose the government’s changes to employment law with rallies in the Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch and Dunedin.
Click through for the schedule.
Written By: - Date published: 10:17 am, August 6th, 2010 - 280 comments
When National rammed through the first version of the 90 day fire at will law it claimed the period would be a ‘choice’ negotiated fairly between employees and employers.
Now employers are advertising it as a precondition in job ads, with the Minister backing them all the way.
Written By: - Date published: 8:41 am, July 28th, 2010 - 2 comments
During the election the National Party packaged up its policies so as not to scare voters. The 90 day probationary period was for two specific reasons. It was targeted toward people on the margins of the employment market and only applicable to small businesses. Either the original justifications still hold true, hence undermining any argument to extend the scheme, or the original justifications were rubbish from the very start.
Written By: - Date published: 2:00 pm, July 26th, 2010 - 13 comments
National wants to make a change, they’ve got to make a powerful case that the change will have the results they claim. So where’s their evidence? Where are the models, the studies, the scenarios? They haven’t got any. This is faith-based government. Based on faith in the neo-liberal god. This is guess based government. The guess being that we’ll keep voting for that Nice Man Mr Key.
Written By: - Date published: 7:02 am, July 22nd, 2010 - 22 comments
National’s promises aren’t worth the paper that they’re printed on. They’ve broken plenty and downgraded most of the rest to “aspirational goals”. Now John Key’s current anti-worker employment policies add a whole new chapter to the list of broken election promises.
Written By: - Date published: 9:33 am, July 21st, 2010 - 6 comments
In the 2008 election campaign, National carefully packaged up its policies in such a manner as not to scare voters. One of the policies John Key was very careful to frame was the 90 day probationary period for new workers, rightly called Fire at Will. This removal of rights for working people, he explained to us, was for two specific reasons. It was targeted toward people on the margins of the employment market and only applicable to small businesses (less than 20 workers).
Written By: - Date published: 7:12 am, July 21st, 2010 - 28 comments
Good to see John Key’s lies over the 90 day fire at will law are starting to catch up with him. An employment specialist has come out contradicting Key’s smug assurances that even though his fire at will law will explicitly remove our right to even be given a reason why we’re getting the sack, somehow good faith provisions would still require the employer the give one.
Written By: - Date published: 8:50 am, July 19th, 2010 - 64 comments
Does John Key have any evidence or official advice to back up his claim that taking away workers’ rights to basic fairness and natural justice promotes growth? Will Kiwi workers be as a result of taking away our job security and bargaining power?
Written By: - Date published: 12:50 am, July 18th, 2010 - 44 comments
It was mainly young and poor workers on the minimum wage who were its victims of Fire at Will before. But now the middle class’s jobs will be on the knife edge too and they’re not happy. This will be an issue that causes National to bleed votes, especially if Labour and the unions organise a strong campaign. Middle NZ doesn’t care about poor workers but it’s different when it’s your job at risk.
Written By: - Date published: 8:55 am, July 15th, 2009 - 9 comments
The Key Government decided not to monitor the implementation of its Fire at Will law. It probably feared embarrassment. Fortunately, the EMA and CTU have done something to fill the gap (from RNZ report, not yet online). The EMA conducted a survey of members and the CTU has asked workers to come to them for assistance if …
Written By: - Date published: 9:38 am, May 6th, 2009 - 12 comments
The Fire at Will law has been in place for two months. It’s still very early days but how is it going? Are workers being forced into 90-Day periods against their will? Are people being fired for no good reason? The government can’t tell us because it isn’t bothering to monitor its implementation and effects. No …
Written By: - Date published: 3:00 pm, April 1st, 2009 - 14 comments
No Right Turn exposes ineffectual government spin on the fire at will act. The select committee procedure would have improved the bill. Perhaps to the point that it at least lived up to the spin. Earlier in the month, Minister of Labour Kate Wilkinson warned employers not to abuse their new 90-day fire at will …
Written By: - Date published: 3:42 pm, March 4th, 2009 - 32 comments
The Herald reports the fire at will law is already claiming victims, after Sue Bradford revealed a beneficiary has been denied help for his job relocation costs because Work and Income considered his 90 day ‘trial’ period to mean he was a temporary rather than a permanent worker. Work and Income said it had concerns …
Written By: - Date published: 7:45 pm, March 2nd, 2009 - 13 comments
Kate Wilkinson’s attempts to defend the fire at will bill are getting increasingly desperate. She’s just put out an excited press release where she’s trying to claim that a CTU flyer telling workers they don’t legally have to sign onto a 90 day ‘trial’ period proves her absurd claim that these periods are therefore ‘voluntary’. …
Written By: - Date published: 3:48 pm, March 2nd, 2009 - 37 comments
It’s good to see the Council of Trade Unions offering solidarity to non-union workers who are subject to National’s fire at will law by providing free legal and industrial support. As Helen Kelly said on the news last night, when the Government fails in its basic duty to protect workers from arbitrary employer power then …
Written By: - Date published: 7:17 pm, February 26th, 2009 - 25 comments
Via Farrar’s site I’ve come across this a lovely piece of Government spin. It’s a PDF document checking off everything National’s done in its first 100 days. It’s pretty comprehensive. Funny thing is, despite mentioning everything from bonding doctors to line by line spending reviews, they seem to have completely forgotten the unpopular 90 day …
Written By: - Date published: 9:43 am, December 16th, 2008 - 9 comments
So much for all National’s fine words about probation periods and job creation. Today’s Dominion reports that ReStart will not be available for “those who were sacked, including those who lost their jobs under the new 90-day probation law.” So the conditions for three months “probation” are that you cannot ask for reasons for dismissal …
Written By: - Date published: 4:08 pm, December 12th, 2008 - 117 comments
Taken a matter of minutes ago, the Workers Party protest outside John Key’s multimillion dollar Parnell mansion. Just to remind you that we’ve just seen a man worth tens of millions of dollars take work rights off a whole bunch of people who earn minimum wage. In case you’re wondering what they’re holding up, it’s …
Written By: - Date published: 9:21 am, December 12th, 2008 - 41 comments
If you’re still wondering what the Fire at Will Bill (about to become law just over a day after it was first made pubic) is all about take a look at No Right Turn’s analysis. It is a poorly-written and poorly thought-out law. It takes away your right, if you are fired when the first 90 days of working at …
Written By: - Date published: 10:12 am, December 11th, 2008 - 1 comment
Our new Attorney-General, National’s Chris Finalyson, on the importance of select committees: Select Committees are the engine room of Parliament. They are also intended to provide a level of public and political scrutiny for the range of legislation some routine and some contentious promoted by the government and by individual MPs. They are an important …
Written By: - Date published: 9:05 am, December 11th, 2008 - 41 comments
We’re told that every country in the OECD except New Zealand and Denmark has a probation period like National/ACT’s Fire at Will law. Apart from being incorrect – we already have provision for probation periods like other countries do, difference is in those countries and under our current law a dismissal can be challenged as unjustified, the …
Written By: - Date published: 6:54 am, December 11th, 2008 - 16 comments
The National/ACT line in defending pushing through legislation like the Fire at Will Bill under urgency, without any select committee process, without any of the normal procedures for the proposed law to be publicly reviewed, even without tabling the Bill before it is to be voted on, is that the election gave them a mandate …
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