The Labour-led Government needs to quickly rule out compulsory unionisation which is being proposed by its mates, National’s Workplace Relations and Safety spokesperson Scott Simpson says.

“The idea being proposed by academics and a former Labour Party president that workers should automatically be signed up to the union and have to opt-out if they don’t want to be is just a sneaky way of making trade union membership compulsory.

“Professor Mark Harcourt and former Labour Party President and MP Margaret Wilson have been working on this since just after the Labour Government came into office. They say they have had meetings with senior Government Ministers about their plan.

“Business confidence is already at 10 year lows. This Government’s poor policy making decision has dragged business confidence back to the lows we saw in the depths of the Global Financial Crisis. The threat of this will do nothing to help confidence improve.

“Labour wants higher union membership because the unions are the largest funders of the Labour Party. This would be a return to compulsory unionism.

“If this Government is serious about improving business confidence, it will rule out this proposal.”

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