14 April 2015

Greens happy Government adopting their zero hours law changes

The Green Party is happy the Government is adopting key sections of Denise Roche’s members’ bill that winds back the worst aspects of National’s unfair zero hours law.

This morning employment minister Michael Woodhouse announced that the Government is looking at changes to employment law to provide compensation when there is short notice cancellation of shifts and to ban restraints of trade on employment.

“National’s employment law permits zero hour contracts. We need to wind back their unfair laws and create better rules that give all employees basic regular hours of work,” said Green Party employment relations spokesperson Denise Roche.

“It looks like employment minister Michael Woodhouse plans to adopt key sections of my Bill to make hours of work fairer. I’m happy to give him my suggested law changes if it means employees across New Zealand get a better deal.

“National’s unfair zero hour laws have been exposed and now they have been forced to adopt the Green Party’s solutions to fix the problem.

“A key piece of my Bill is to get rid of the common practice of shifts being cancelled at short notice without any compensation. The Minister has said today he wants that change too, which is great.

“My Bill also ensures staff can take on another job when their employer resists giving them decent regular hours.

“It is unfair that staff can be locked into contracts that don’t give them enough hours to survive on, but also restrict their ability to get other work. I’m pleased to hear the Government is looking to adopt my law change in this area.

“If the Government is serious about protecting workers from the risks of zero hour contracts they should instruct Work and Income to stop accepting them as jobs.

“Work and Income should insist that all jobs they send beneficiaries to have regular minimum hours and decent protections.

“There is still much work to be done to make our employment laws fair again, but adopting these Green Party ideas is a good start.”

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