80 Per Cent Oppose Dismissal Law Change

The CTU has released a UMR survey which shows that 80 percent of New Zealanders oppose the Government’s planned changes to dismissal law. The CTU commissioned the survey from UMR because previous polls focused on the trial period aspect of the 90 day proposal, rather than the removal of the right of appeal against unfair dismissal.

The Employment Relations Amendment Bill No 2 will allow all employers to engage a worker with no right of appeal against unfair dismissal in the first 90 days.

A UMR Research telephone survey of a nationally representative sample of 750 New Zealanders responded to the following question:

“Do you think that all employees should have the right to appeal if they think they have been unfairly dismissed, even if their dismissal was during the first 90 days of their employment?

The response was:

Yes 80%

No 18%

Unsure 2%

A summary of the survey is attached: Final CTU 90 Day Trial Sept 2010

Peter Conway, CTU Secretary said today, “the Government needs to rethink this policy. While a previous survey showed a majority favour a trial period, this survey shows a much larger majority of New Zealanders oppose any removal of the right to appeal against unfair dismissal in that period”.

“The CTU is not against trial periods. Nor do we oppose fair dismissal. But this Bill goes too far by removing the right of wage and salary earners to appeal against a dismissal, no matter how unfair, in their first 90 days of employment. Each year, there are hundreds of thousands of workers starting a new job so can be affected by this policy”.

Peter Conway said that the response to this poll shows that people from across the spectrum of incomes, ages, regions and occupations strongly oppose what the Government is doing.

“This Bill is a political deal done between John Key and the ACT Party. It is time for this Government to support workers rather than Rodney Hide and ACT”.

ENDS

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