17 November 2010 - Media Release: Megan Woods, Labour Candidate for Wigram

Wong affair shows Key hypocritical on employment rights

Prime Minister John Key has been accused of hypocrisy by denying workers the right to be treated fairly at work while at the same time insisting that beleaguered National Member of Parliament Pansy Wong be treated fairly while under investigation for allegedly rorting parliamentary expenses and using her parliamentary position to further her husband’s business interests.

Megan Woods, the Labour Party candidate for Wigram, says that new employment relations legislation being debated under urgency this week and promoted by the National-ACT Government will strip away all rights to job security for workers in their first 90 days of employment. Additionally, all workers will be denied the right to have their union representatives visit them at work unless their employer explicitly agrees, and all workers may be required to provide a medical certificate for the very first day of any illness resulting in them being off work.

Megan Woods says that, under National’s new employment laws, workers can be sacked without reason during the first ninety days with a new employer and will be denied any ability to challenge the dismissal. This includes where a new employer takes over an existing business where a worker may have been employed for a number of years.

“The irony will not be lost on workers that, at the very time this legislation being debated, John Key is championing Pansy Wong’s rights to fair process,” Ms Woods said. “It is clear that there is one law for National party members and their cronies and another for ordinary working people, such as many Wigram constituents.”

Megan Woods was recently selected as the Labour Party to contest the Wigram seat in the 2011 General Election. The Wigram seat is currently held by Jim Anderton who will stand down after 27 years as a local Member of Parliament.

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