National’s Scott Simpson declared that it was democratically offensive that a relatively small group of workers can trigger mandatory, nationwide employment negotiations.
Notably Scott Simpson was only talking about Fair Pay negotiations because strike action has been ruled out.
That’s right this is not about the 1970s and endless strikes.
It’s just about employers having to listen and make offers about a reasonable level of pay in certain industries who pay workers shit wages.
National object to the recommendation in a working group paper about Fair Pay Agreements that 10% of an industry’s workforce or 1000 workers ( whichever is lower ) could trigger such friendly talks about terrible pay levels for an industry.
Some industries race for the bottom – as competitors employ cheaper labour and undercut each other until you end up with an endless sweat shop model across a whole industry.
Not only that the workers frequently have no way to trigger pay negotiations when cheap labour fuelled competition dominates the decision making mindset of employers.
Terranova Homes was one of the best examples of this situation.
In 2012, aged care worker and E tū member Kristine Bartlett brought an Equal Pay Act case against her employer, Terranova Homes.
She argued she had spent 20 years on very low pay because aged care is largely performed by women.
Kristine Bartlett’s case went all the way to the Supreme Court – with Courts agreeing with her that she had been underpaid because of gender discrimination.
The case was referred to the Employment Court to set a fair rate for Kristine.
The Employment Court ruled in her favour, finding women in female-dominated industries can now compare themselves to men in other industries requiring similar skills when pushing for pay equality.
After the decision, employment experts said the determination could have wider implications for any industry where women predominated, notably in health and education.
By September 19 2013, National’s Labour Minister Simon Bridges was shitting his pants through this and the public was on the side of the workers.
This could impact votes?
OMG Panic.
When asked to clarify his position about this, Mr Bridges’ press secretary said it was too early to say what action could be taken.
“At what level, at what stage, or if at all, hasn’t been decided.”
Meanwhile TerraNova Homes vowed to appeal the decision and National saw this was going to get ugly and take years to fix.
So National eventually stepped in after dragging it’s feet for years and pay negotiations commenced and took 20 months between the government and the Unions.
Eileen Goodwin wrote in the Otago Daily Times on 19 September 2017 :
“Ironically, one of National’s signature achievements is the caregiver pay agreement, which effectively established industry pay rates. It was achieved without ructions of any sort, amid strong public support. While it came about through a gender equity pay claim, it is not unlike the sort of process that might happen with an FPA.”
PM Ardern has pointed out that there are only a handful of these types of industries and how she expected one or two to enter pay talks in her first term.
She also referred to the caregiver pay agreement as a notable example where it took the courts to trigger fair pay negotiations.
This was also larger than just a gender pay issue as Eileen Goodwin pointed out :
“The caregiver pay agreement benefited a group lacking in bargaining power that had few avenues to achieve a pay rise.It had public sympathy arguably not because of concern over unequal pay for women, but because it shone a light on the shockingly low pay received by a group of skilled workers.”
Meanwhile today National and the Business Lobby are now whipping up hysteria about proposed mechanisms to address such oppressive industry pay by negotiation.
They call it democratically offensive.
National only stepped in to address the caregiver pay agreement because they were on the wrong side of public opinion and court action.
Perhaps this is still their default position?
Let the court of public opinion determine when an industry should get to negotiate fair pay?
The Coalition does not think being fair should be so hard or so politically motivated.
No business nor industry is a democracy, instead they operate much more like plutocracy where a minority elite hold all the decision making power.
Especially industries where pay has raced for the bottom.
Business is democratically offensive by nature and it’s a pathetic argument that workers must conform to an industry wide democracy before the aligned oppressive decision making minority can be brought to the negotiating table.
Gerard Otto is an activist and writer
