Sick Of It

Bunji
14 years ago
Categories: employment, Unions, workers' rights
Tags: sick leave

The Employment Relations Act Amendment (2) Bill ~~hasn’t had its first reading yet, so we can’t~~ has had its first reading so you can now bombard the Select Committee with what a load of #&@! it is ~~for a little while longer~~ until the 13th of September for the ERA and 17th September for the Holiday act. It not only extends 90-day probation to all companies, it:

restricts unions’ abilities to visit workplaces (they have to get employer permission first)
allows employers to bargain directly with individual employees whilst the union is trying to do a collective deal for them (allowing select employees to be split off in divide and conquer strategies)
makes it harder to make and win a personal grievance claim against an employer

All these things need fighting against with a united front by the unions, Labour, the Greens etc, and the more protest the better.

But these aren’t the point of my post. I’ll probably have another post on those things when it does get to select committee and we can all send our “words of encouragement” to the MPs considering it.

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Last week I was thinking about how rubbish sick leave was in this country and how it would be good to slip in an amendment to fix that. Bill beat me to expressing that thought, but I want to push it more.

Labour or the Greens should add an amendment to the ERA Amendment (2) Bill that you can have sick days in your first 6 months of work, and that you get 10 days per year. I personally think you should have more than 10 days, as you do in most European countries, but if the amendment is made to be very reasonable it will look bad for National when they inevitably try to vote it down.

It is ridiculous that you can not get sick in the first 6 months of employment. If you started a new job shortly before winter (like I just did), it is inevitable that one might get a few sniffles in the first 6 months. Fortunately my employer is reasonable on such issues, but many aren’t. And for those on low wages a day without pay isn’t feasible – best to come in and infect the workmates if you can get out of bed.

Even David Farrar thinks that 10 days sick leave per year is very reasonable. He claims not to know an employer who doesn’t give 10 days, but such is the joy of living in a Thorndon Bubble. From my asking about it was hard to find an employer who did give as many as 10 days.

Such an amendment would be in stark contrast to National’s proposed sick leave policy and would show them up as the stingy suspicious lot that they are.

[lprent: Updated the first paragraph because the acts have had their first reading.

You can make submissions with the CTU's help through the fairness.org.nz website,
Holidays Act submission help will also be online shortly. ]