A FEW YEARS AGO, Helen Kelly delivered one of the best speeches I had ever heard at a Labour Party Conference. It was on the subject of employers. The gist of her address was that, since the 1990s, a conviction had taken hold in the minds of New Zealand employers that they were the country’s biggest philanthropists. Far from acknowledging their role in the processes of ruthless commercial exchange, these employers spoke of themselves as the selfless creators of jobs for their fellow citizens. Not for profit, you understand, but out of the goodness of their big, generous hearts.
Trade unions, in the opinion of these unsung social heroes, were doing everything possible to thwart the employers unbounded philanthropy. These subversive organisations were determined to prevent the employing class from carrying on their good works. Somehow, these miscreant socialists had got it into their heads that capitalism was about exploitation. Such complete nonsense! As if all that unstinting effort could be expended in the name of something as vulgar as making money!
It was a great speech.
I was reminded of Helen’s insights only this morning (5/3/18) as I read an opinion piece penned by Leicester Gouwland, a partner in the accounting and financial services firm, Crowe Horwarth (a small part of the multinational behemoth, Findex). Gouwland’s bugbear du jour was the Labour-NZF-Green government’s legislation abolishing the 90-day trial period in businesses employing more than 20 people.
He began his argument by citing the less-than-supportive responses to the government’s legislation from both the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment and the Treasury. Why did the government ignore their advice? And why did it give them so little time to prepare it?
To anyone not already sold on neoliberalism, the answers to those questions are blindingly obvious. Gouwland’s indignation is, however, a useful pointer to just how much reliance employers now place on the agencies of the state to defend the “reforms” of the 1980s and 90s from any attempt to roll them back.
These comments were only the hors d’oeuvres to Gouwland’s feast, however. The main course was delivered in his response to the revelation (from no less a source than the 2014/15 National Survey of Employers) that 24 percent of workers taken on under the 90-day rule were dismissed during the period of the trial.
Just think about that. One worker in four was dismissed from their job arbitrarily and without the opportunity for legal redress.
Now read Gouwland’s interpretation of his astonishing statistic.
“This high percentage suggests the trial period is working and highlights the risk that employers take. It also suggests limiting its use will cost employers significant time and money to terminate these employees.”
Seldom have I encountered a more damning illustration of the employers’ mindset in relation to the rights of their employees. Workers are not there to be trained, assisted, counselled and, where all of the foregoing interventions have proved fruitless, warned that any further refusals to amend their behaviour will put their continued employment at risk. No, they are simply there to be “terminated”.
That the Employment Court has ruled over and over again that it is unlawful for employers to arbitrarily or constructively dismiss their workers, makes not the slightest difference to the employers who, as Helen Kelly so wryly pointed out, genuinely believe they are doing their workers a favour by “giving” them a job.
Logically-speaking, to “give” someone a job implies that the normal contractual relationship between “master” and “servant” has been by-passed. Someone who has been “given” a job is, presumably, not required to perform the labour that the job entails. Instead, the worker will be paid regardless of whether or not she fulfils her half of the bargain.
Now, this may happen when former politicians are installed on the boards of state-owned enterprises; or, when the clueless son of the boss is given a well-remunerated title without responsibility; but it almost never happens when someone applies to do a job of work essential to the efficient operation of the business – and its profits.
People are not “given” jobs, they are hired: and if the contract is one of service, then they cannot be dismissed without reasonable cause. The 90-day trial period was nothing more nor less than a legislative device for excusing the employers from their obligation to uphold and honour the contractual relationship with their employees.
Gouwland’s unwitting exposure of the employer mindset continues.
“An argument supporting the removal of the 90-day trial period is that it provides employee protection. It is hard to understand this argument as any non-performing employees will now need to go through a performance process. So where is the protection. Termination of employment is only delayed.”
Did Gouwland really just suggest that the purpose of the “performance process” is to facilitate the “termination of employment”?
Clearly, Mr Gouwland did not receive the memo about employers being the country’s biggest philanthropists. We miscreant socialists should, however, be grateful to the author of this extraordinary opinion piece. Seldom have workers been presented with a more compelling argument for joining a trade union!
The few have employed many strategies to exploit the many -slavery, feudalism, enclosure of the commons, ‘satanic mills’, debt-slavery etcetera, etcetera- and most of those strategies have worked well for long periods of time. After all, why work when you can force someone else in a less fortunate position (usually an accident of birth) to work for you?
I suspect Mr Gouwland may be suffering the effects of an over indulgence of laissez faire and mistakenly believes ‘hair of the dog’ is the remedy….time to detox.
Excellent , Mr Trotter,… exposing yet one more of the ‘ privileged’ class.
Though I hesitate to label all employers as either privileged or mercenary. Some of them are very good. However , in New Zealand post 1984 , and in particular Ruth Richardsons Employment Contract Act 1991 and the destruction of the Trade Unions collective bargaining power ,…we have seen countless employers over that time abuse individuals ,- and were it not for some highly publicized accounts , –
would never have seen the light of day.
Much to the chagrin of many CEO’s of the larger company’s in particular.
And yet not all employers of New Zealand origin are to blame but many recent arrivals from overseas also , – who seem to have a habit of exploiting their own people and using the threat of visa’s and citizenship as a weapon against them. And taking advantage of the laxness prevalent in this country of legal enforcement due to the absence of a strong Unionized workforce.
This is the wholesale exploitation and abuse of other human beings which was made possible by the culture that was originally enabled by Roger Douglas and his successors, Jenny Shipley and Ruth Richardson in particular.
And its called neo liberalism.
Others would call it lords and serfdom.
The arrogance of Gouwland contrasted with your words :
… ‘ Clearly, Mr Gouwland did not receive the memo about employers being the country’s biggest philanthropists. We miscreant socialists should, however, be grateful to the author of this extraordinary opinion piece. Seldom have workers been presented with a more compelling argument for joining a trade union! ‘ …
Deserves to be acted upon.
And during the pre neo liberal era and during the Keynesian economics era the Trade Unions may have had some radicalism among some Unions but they were generally recognized as vital to the equity and fairness for all people. And that was reflected in our otherwise egalitarian culture and legislated in for those very same reasons and to prevent a slide into a repeat of 19th century style English sweatshops.
But groups like the Business Roundtable ( currently the NZ Initiative) and other political lobby groups like them waited and watched for their moment and their individual to overturn that fairness and equity.
And they found their man and woman in Roger Douglas and Ruth Richardson , – both sitting board members of the London based Mont Pelerin Society under whose directives the Business Roundtable took their orders from.
And so it has been for 34 years , … this culture of legalized abuse and theft of peoples wages .
It wasn’t long ago due to the Pike River disaster that the John Key led National party were forced to look at Health and Safety . They infamously came up with ‘ worm farming ‘ as a top hazardous place of employment. And while this may have been an embarrassing error on their part, – the grim reality of Pike River and many other workplace deaths and accidents remained under their negligent administration.
So too did the poverty, the homelessness and the children dying of preventable third world respiratory illnesses due to poor standards of housing and exorbitant electricity prices. Both of these as a direct result of the failed privatization of the power company’s and the attempted handing over the responsibility’s of state housing to private company’s. The latter deliberately underfunded to try and justify that privatization.
This is the sort of degenerate social conditions in society that neo liberalism breeds . The lowest common denominator. It truly is the political evil of our time in the western world.
And the words of Gouwland himself just go towards unwittingly testifying towards that very fact.
Neo Liberalism should be retitled. To give those who look on at it in horror without an understanding of it. Think a horror movie where the soon-to-be victims see The Thing coming but have no idea what it is, therefore have no idea how to defeat it. A sheep would fire out a huge shit then run for it. Sound familiar? You Kiwis now living in AU?
I like Neo narcissistic sadism. Has a nice ring to it and for those still in the dark about The Thing can go ” Oh..? ok. I see it now. Lets kill it with a stick! ”
Does anyone else notice? That neo liberals are, all of them, fucked in the head yet blame everyone else for the nightmare’s they construct? And they did construct a nightmare that was once our PSA, for example. They’ve mutated it into a hammering machine to bash people down and crush dissent.
As for fuck-face Leicester Gouwland. Ok cock-head, how about keeping your lauded 90 day termination in place to protect the ever generous Neo Narcissistic Sadists from the big bad waged slavers and we renationalise our services and amenities like banking, housing, electricity, transport, health, education etc then conduct a public inquiry into who did what to take what to sell to whom for how much when? How about you first?
Great Post @ CT.
This guy just sounds like a smug employer who has the power that has gone to his head. He has never had to take on union strength because it has not existed in his time. I think this chap needs a bit of punishment from the unions if you ask me. Drop him a floor or two in his ivory tower…. Great blog Chris.
There are many many employees with exactly the same mindset around gratitude and termination.
They support the attitude displayed by Mr Gouwland actively and vocally. Their fear of meeting the dismal existence of being on a benefit shows up in brash and unplesant talk, bullying, toadying and putting up with exploitation.
‘We are the free people. We’re mates with the boss. We don’t need a union. Get rid of the useless skivers.’
Unless you cannot be fired, unless you have some ownership in the enterprise, you are a worker and can very easily suffer all the humiliation that is the special preserve of the ‘working class’ – from youth rates to over-inflated. Believe it.
(Enron and 14000 workers. https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/farming/agribusiness/92904077/no-more-freezing-works-closures-this-season-says-silver-fern-farms Cadbury’s Dunedin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finance_company_collapses,_2006-12_(New_Zealand) )
Chris, I have considerable respect for your views (and the skilled English with which you present them). But speaking from a position of naivety, I wonder why on earth would an employer take someone on — hire them — all that paperwork, train them up, get them contributing to the business, only to ditch them after 90 days? All that bother wasted, and start over again? That seems to me like self-in-the-foot shooting. And if, on the other hand (in spite of, I presume, a reasonable initial interview) an employee turns out to be unsatisfactory and non-contributory, then it would be unreasonable to require an employer to keep them on, wouldn’t it?
But as I said, I speak as a naif, having only ever worked in the ivory tower of public service, very occasionally on an interview panel for prospective employees (but I have seen the wet blanket effect a single poor participant can have within a tight working environment)
People want predictability, secutiry and safety. And if the smart people, the employers can’t provide that then giving them a 90 day coop out will mean those redundant employees will vote for the first party promising jobs very quickly.
Heehehee…. and we certainly wont get that ‘security’ , ‘safety ‘ or any modicum of ‘security’ within a neo liberal climate of expendable serfs, will we…
The only way any employee is protected is through a Trade Union. Leave it up to fickle human whims and even the most respected employee is expendable if the ‘ boss’ is having a bad day.
Which is certainly not ‘contractual’.
Solidarity is the way of the movement. I mean if we take a quick stock take of the bottom 30% of New Zealand they don’t own any production what so ever. And they are unlikely to ever join us in the middle. So we must be realistic in what assistance can be provided. And this means reclaiming unproductive land and doing for themselves what others can not. So first off shelter can be provided, then cooperative food production, unionisation, budgeting, and then trade. This is how Maori, woman and the disenfranchised will brake the shackles of colonisation.
It suppresses the wage too – don’t like the $$ for the conditions being worked? Well tough you’re fired, we will import some immigrants, they will do it for less, such hard workers.
Good bosses paying good money would seldom need the 90 day law.
Most bosses would think they are good and offer good conditions. Many of them in NZ would be wrong.
Chris, I have considerable respect for your views (and the skilled English with which you present them). But speaking from a position of naivety, I wonder why on earth would an employer take someone on — hire them — all that paperwork, train them up, get them contributing to the business, only to ditch them after 90 days? All that bother wasted, and start over again? That seems to me like self-in-the-foot shooting. And if, on the other hand (in spite of, I presume, a reasonable initial interview) an employee turns out to be unsatisfactory and non-contributory, then it would be unreasonable to require an employer to keep them on, wouldn’t it?
But as I said, I speak as a naif, having only ever worked in the ivory tower of public service, very occasionally on an interview panel for prospective employees (but I have seen the wet blanket effect a single poor participant can have within a tight working environment)
They may ditch them for political views – ie: whether they believe in Trade Unions or whether they threaten to take their issue to the Union.
And as you may well recall… it wasn’t that long ago under the National party that Trade Union Representatives were barred from setting foot on an employers property if that employer so ruled…
A little bit of that happened at Pike River as one may recall.
So whether that employer likes it or not , – we ALL have to play the game. And that includes THEM.
There are very good recent historical precedents as to why the whole 90 day trial legislation is wrong. Including hiring a person only to find out later they belong to a Trade Union or having inclinations to do so.
That combined with the manipulative tool of pitting one employee against another and justifying it with the neo liberal excuse of paying one more than the other based on ‘ merit’.
Whose ‘ merit’ ?… the subjective ‘ merit’ of the employer in order to use the tool of dividing their workforce to drive wages down?
I’m sure many women have felt the full force and taken the brunt of that way of thinking / scheming…
As have Maori , immigrants or any other vulnerable group open to exploitation.
Business serves only one purpose to create wealth. Yesterday we had a wealthy American threaten our Government should they go ahead with the ban on foreign investors, today this…http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=12007127.
So whilst Spark suck on the consumers tit, as does the American businessman, they forget that it is those consumers whom hurt the most by Nationals “New Zealand” for sale motto. So Spark loses a few sales but New Zealanders at last, again, can buy in their own country.
Thank you, that really made me think … simple yet poignantly written.
In short, we had three decades of sadly very successful and effective brain washing of the population, who are told to be grateful to breathe and just be alive, to ‘serve’ by working over 40 or 50 hours a week, to pay for their livelihood and funeral, as nobody else will get rid of their dead body once the slave dies.
This is where we are, folks, this is the damned truth, you are told to not rely on the state, on any collective support, you even have to pay for your own burial or incineration, so to avoid a burden to others.
FFS, this total BS society we have, where so many even put up with this madness, deserves to be buried itself, once and for all.
People are raised with fear and otherwise ignorance, from school age on, they are also totally controlled, as government departments and services record every detail they hear, read and get reported now, and exchange it. Even the useless Privacy Commissioner, paid by us, is not standing up against this abuse of power and private info gathering.
Sadly, people are so afraid, submissive, or selling out anyway, rather than show collective support and loyalty, all geared to advance their own interests above others.
The audacity to label the humble steps by this government as something like this that is criminal.
But as long as most are so brainwashed and selfish, also intimidated, to take no action, we will have these neolibs control the affairs, even under this weak coalition government. That is what I fear and see.
Stand up, be counted and rebel, thanks.
So true. These Neo Liberals are hidden away and protected. They will hold onto the dogma for life and limb because it feathers the nest of the few at the top. Not sure what we can do. These people are powerful and have money eventually they will live behind gated communities.
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