Bill to bring industry-wide fairness 'pretty exciting' for workers

Sunday, 1 May 2022

The supermarket industry is a likely contender for a new fair pay agreements bill, which will enable bargaining between unions and entire industry sectors, rather than just individual businesses.

A bill making its way through Parliament will bring New Zealand fairness standards into alignment with common international practice, a Labour Member of Parliament says.

Nelson MP Rachel Boyack said the Fair Pay Agreements Bill currently going through the select committee process, having passed its first reading, will standardise things like pay and holiday time across select industries.

“We’ll be moving to a bargaining framework that we used to have, that is very common across the world and in Australia, which is why they tend to have higher wages,” she said.

Under current laws, unions and employers must bargain on an individual business basis. The new bill proposes a system where agreements are reached between unions and employer associations and applied to all employees in a sector.

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Nelson MP Rachel Boyack was a FIRST Union organiser before she became MP for Nelson, and said the new legislation was “pretty exciting” for workers who had been bargaining for better conditions “for years”.

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Nelson City Council is taking steps towards a living wage for bus drivers, which Boyack praised, but she said that recognition of skilled work like bus-driving needed to spread further – which the bill would help with.

She said some public sectors, like health and education, had a similar model already, but the new bill would affect private sector industries. The specific industries to be affected by the bill have not been settled on, but Boyack said supermarkets would be likely contenders.

“It’s pretty exciting, particularly for workers who have been campaigning for this for years,” she said.

Boyack, who used to be an organiser with FIRST Union, said the legislation would change the game from competing for low prices by underpaying workers, to competing for the best products or services.

She assured that while the exact industries it would affect had not been established yet, it would not affect struggling sectors like hospitality and should not lead to increased prices since it would be targeted towards businesses which were known to be making high profits.

“We will be working in those industries and sectors where we know they’re doing well – for example we know that supermarkets have been doing well through the pandemic … what’s happening is that the money people are spending is going into profits. This will mean that some of that goes towards the workers. They [supermarkets] are very profitable, and they can afford it.”

She said other industries being considered included cleaners and bus drivers.

FIRST Union representative and Pak’nSave Richmond union delegate Jenny Wells said the new bill would level the playing field for workers, and give them the security to know that their wages and working conditions were the same as any other worker.

“That’s not always spelled out, and things are often assumed,” she said.

“We’ve had a situation where people get paid at different rates, and it just seems to be based on what the employer feels like at the time.”

She said while fair pay was a big part of it, there were other aspects that would have an impact, like public holidays, which people working on a Tuesday to Saturday schedule essentially missed out on but which could become “Tuesdayised” (similar to Mondayisation), or establishing standardised recognition for service, like increased benefits or pay for long-term employees.

The bill is currently going through the select committee process and is open for public submissions until May 19. Should it pass its next readings, it could come into law before the end of the year.