Coronavirus: Vast majority of employers doing the right thing
Thursday, 9 April 2020
OPINION: I was disappointed to read Wednesday's opinion piece by a union official complaining of employers behaving badly during the Covid-19 emergency.
I don't want to diminish those complaints - some 2000 of them - as they relate to people's jobs and livelihoods.
Employers who have broken the rules deserve punishment.
But, overwhelmingly, these are not actions of most employers, nor the experience of most employees.
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With now well over a million employees receiving the subsidy and more than 350,000 businesses involved, those complaints relate to less than 0.2 per cent of employees receiving the subsidy.
The vast majority of businesses are doing the right thing.
The Covid-19 outbreak has brought disaster and uncertainty for many businesses, with no revenues, no sales, and massive uncertainty about what comes next.
Within the space of only a few days, businesses were confronted with the alert level changing from level two on Saturday to level three on Monday, and level four lockdown by Thursday.
Within five days businesses went from little to no cashflow while having to consider rules making them liable for trading while insolvent, which were only amended last Friday.
In the midst of this rapidly-escalating emergency it's been impressive seeing so many businesses committed to paying their people.
During the last two weeks, thousands of businesses have called BusinessNZ Network help lines wanting advice on how to save their employees' jobs.
Large enterprises with big staff numbers and significant payroll costs, and small businesses with only a few staff - across the board, businesses have been focused on maintaining jobs.
I believe that business has responded to the Covid-19 crisis in a responsible way.
The Government itself has performed well during this emergency. Quickly - and relatively efficiently -it launched a comprehensive wage subsidy scheme to help maintain people's incomes through the lockdown.
The value of this scheme is that it directly supports wages. By supporting people's spending power, it eases cashflow through the economy, helping businesses pay their people as they negotiate the crisis.
The businesses calling the BusinessNZ Network help lines are conveying a lot of appreciation for the wage subsidy scheme.
For those businesses, the subsidy scheme is helping them safeguard their most important asset - people.
It's in this context that we should view some media reports about businesses behaving badly, with regard to the wage subsidy scheme.
Some isolated instances of poor employment practice should be seen in the context of an overwhelming volume of employers doing the right thing.
These are extremely challenging times
Many companies are having to make very tough decisions, and a lot of people are losing their jobs as businesses go broke or try to survive in the face of no income for the lockdown.
But, as the numbers for the wage subsidy show, hundreds of thousands of businesses are also doing everything they can to ensure they keep their people and start to operate as soon as they are able and allowed to after lockdown.
In an unprecedented emergency situation, employers are seeking advice and doing all they can to save jobs and safeguard future job prospects
We need them to do this, as their future growth will help provide jobs that are being lost right now.
Kirk Hope is the chief executive of BusinessNZ