REDUNDANCY RIGHTS FOR ALL WORKERS NOW!

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Over the years, Unite Union has fought for better redundancy terms for our workers at Skycity.

Many tens of thousands of workers in New Zealand will now lose their jobs without this cushion. Unite argues for the immediate provision of statutory redundancy rights for all workers by the Labour led Government, as this is also their own party policy.

Here I would like to tautoko the work of former Labour Party MP Darien Fentonwho tried to get this passed into law many years ago. 4 by 2 for all.

12 COMMENTS

  1. Would be nice to see what Darien Fenton is proposing in this article.

    I think the government should remove the Employment Relations authority which is dysfunctional as is too expensive and takes too long. It is bad for both employees and employers.

    Instead a tribunal like the disputes tribunal which does not allow lawyers to attend should be made for employment issues (apart from group litigation against employers for human rights or gross infringements to groups of employees).

    The disputes tribunal normally have cases heard within a short period of time. Like the disputes tribunal there should be a limit to the settlements aka $30k or within 1 years income of the employee dispute so that is is more likely that justice is given as at present paying the lawyers to attend the ERA is very expensive.

    ERA essentially needs to become a layman disputes for justice not a lengthy expensive process centric dysfunction approach led by employment lawyers like the ERA that discourages anybody pursuing a claim.

    In addition there should just be statutory redundancy given by law to anybody who works for a company.

    Aka If a person is made redundant then the employer automatically has to pay 1 month’s redundancy pay for every year of work they did for the company up to 1 years redundancy pay.

    Aka workers who work for 3 years for a company before being made redundant get 3 months of redundancy pay automatically. Workers @ 10 years of work for a company automatically get 10 months of redundancy pay. etc

    Redundancy pay should also not be taxed by the government of at a lower level aka 10% tax.

    Redundancy pay should also apply to sub contractors that work 90% of the time for that employer, aka Chorus workers or through labour hire firms to remove the incentive to make employers want to work through third parties to avoid redundancy pays.

    Big read: Why being made redundant in NZ is so tough
    https://www.odt.co.nz/news/dunedin/big-read-why-being-made-redundant-nz-so-tough

    The Cadbury case is even more heartbreaking in that the multinational owner did a lot of ‘funny money’ transactions and loaded the company up with debt, prior to the redundancies.

    Business commentator Rod Oram
    https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/ninetonoon/audio/201843153/business-commentator-rod-oram

    By law there should also be large fines for companies that buy corporations in NZ but are not acting ‘in good faith’ for the citizens of NZ with debt or large intellectual property ‘fees’ to overseas transfers to reduce their taxable income in NZ.

  2. With thousands of businesses large and small fighting for their lives after this lock down finishes, what a fucking genius idea to force redundancy payments on them.
    That is bound to finish them off completely leaving even more people unemployed.
    How the fuck do you come up with brilliant ideas?

      • UBI is an unsustainable fantasy.
        What is required is a generous assistance package for both employees and companies for the next 6 months to stem the job losses and the misery caused by those jobs that are lost.

        • A UBI is a goal that hasn’t been inpmplemented yet. The only unsustained fantasy is free market economics. Wake up! You’re so conflicted you know the left is right about a UBI don’t you?

          • NZ used to have many UBI’s like family credit to help families and of course the superannuation here.

            The governments of NZ seem to have got rid of all the money that used to help individual citizens in NZ, while instead thinking it is better given it to offshore shareholders in wage and benefit top ups.

            A donation from those multinationals to politicians after that, helps spread the love. Sarcasm.

        • Jays, a company is not a living thing that needs money. For whatever reason one of the issues of society downfall seems to be the assumption that business is more important than people and society.

          I am not anti business, but am anti stupid group thinking, the Thatcher led promotion of business against (society) has been going on for 30 years and making many people’s lives worse around the world. Covid-19 and the devastation that has created is part of the rot.

  3. As it appears at present…

    the Covid-19 saga is just one singular step in a cascading series of socio-economic events accompanying capitalist exploitation of natural resources, destruction of eco-systems and fueling of climate change.

    Further local and global disruptions are due to be expected, most probably, but we cannot exactly forecast, when and how.

    As it appears at present…

    trade unions have not yet fully understood the implications of the tectonic changes that will take place over the next 20-50 years, and how it may very negatively impact workers, academic precariat, small farmers and small business-people as still genuine productive socioeconomic classes.

    As it appears at present…

    the only real power these people will have are in their numbers, their diversity, and their capacity to act in solidarity across national borders.

    Time to get your things organized, Bro.

    Time to work differently, Sis.

    System Change. Now.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJTOD5jjac4
    Bella Ciao.

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