VUWSA Media Statement On Employment Relations (Automatic Union Membership) Amendment Bill
Te Aka Tauira – the Victoria University of Wellington Students’ Association (VUWSA) welcomes the Green Party’s Employment Relations (Automatic Union Membership) Amendment Bill, as this will significantly improve the employment rights of thousands of students who work across the country.
According to results from VUWSA’s State of the Students survey, 63% of Victoria University students have some form of employment, yet only 12% of students are members of their workplace union. Furthermore, many of our students work in precarious work with weaker individual contracts, unaware that they may have better rights under a collective agreement. “The only way working students have power on the job is when they are organised,” says VUWSA Campaigns Officer Lewis Collins. “Being a member of a union means having stronger rights on the job and having the backs of your fellow workers”.
The current Government has attacked workers’ rights through the removal of Fair Pay Agreements, the Employment Leave Bill, the Health and Safety at Work Amendment Bill and the removal of Pay Equity. VUWSA is a strong ally of all working people, especially our working students.
Working students should never have to face insecure work alone. Automatic union membership will help ensure every student starts their job with the support, protection, and collective strength they deserve.
Great that the VUWSA has welcomed the Green’s Automatic Union M/ship Bill since it will significantly improve the employment rights of thousands of students who work across the country. These students would have better rights under a collective agreement and this could even up the imbalance that is clear to all! Seems like Greens are onto so many good initiatives and willing to do the hard yards. The Left need to continue to show us how we can do better than the status quo and that shouldn’t be difficult, since they have done ‘stuff all’ to help NZ workers, instead concentrating on filling the purses of their wealthy, smug, greedy enablers! They have yet to learn, that in time, it will come back and bite them!