One of the most disappointing things about the debate over National’s fire at will law is how little its supporters understand the basic issues.
Take Farrar’s latest post, where he says:
But I would warn the unions to be careful about assuming all, or even most, dismissals during the 90 day period are ‘exploitive’. That new sales rep may have proved unable to make any sales. That new cleaner may just be generating too many complaints from clients. Or that new staffer might just be an arsehole who is disrupting everyone else in the office.
Implicit in this comment is the idea that somehow before this law employers were unable to sack incompetent or disruptive employees. That’s simply rubbish.
Employers could sack people with minimal fuss under the old law so long as they followed a fair process, and workers had a natural justice right to appeal their decision. Employers fired incompetent staff members frequently, and with minimal fuss.
National’s law simply takes away the fair process and rights to natural justice, so that rather than just incompetent workers being under the gun we’re now all at threat of being sacked for no reason. You can see why all those “good workers” out there are pissed off.
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