Social security fish-hooks in new trial period law

Social security fish-hooks in new trial period law

Beneficiary advocates say that the Government’s new trial period law contains a number of hidden traps under the social security system. According to Rebecca Occleston, of the Beneficiary Advisory Service, promises to adjust social security laws to provide a gentler system for employees on trial periods have simply not been kept by the Government.

First, with very limited exceptions, people applying for benefits face a two-week stand down period before the benefit commences. The National Party had stated prior to the election that the stand-down period for those “let go” under a trial provision would be removed. This has not happened. When employees move from one job to another job which incorporates a trial period, they will therefore face the two week stand-down if the trial does not work out.

Second, Ms Occleston said, there are even worse consequences for trial period employees who are considered to have been dismissed for misconduct, or to have left employment voluntarily. These employees face a 13 week stand down period. Work and Income currently tests such 13 week stand–downs by asking whether a personal grievance could be brought and granting the benefit conditionally if such an action is pursued. Ms Occleston said that “The removal of the right to bring an action for unjustifiable dismissal when trial periods are terminated obviously leaves no room for testing the 13-week stand down for trial period employees. It will be left to individual case managers to decide whether to impose the stand down and they lack appropriate training. Work and Income has a very poor record of administering this law. In one recent case a dismissed worker in his 50s, and in poor health, waited 11 months before a series of poor decisions by Work and Income were reversed on appeal. No-one told him about emergency assistance he might have been entitled to in the meantime. Even worse, he had been unfairly dismissed but for 11 months a series of Work and Income officers told him that he had been stood down for becoming unemployed voluntarily!”

Third, another so-called “safety mechanism” in National’s election policy was the promise that the law would allow trial periods only by mutual agreement. Ms Occleston said “This is a hollow promise. Job applicants don’t have the sort of bargaining power to refuse a trial period. Even if they did, applicants who turn down offers of employment under a trial period will face a stand-down from the unemployment benefit on the basis that they have refused suitable work”.

Ms Occleston pointed out that the new trial period law also impacts on the Government’s Restart programme for redundant workers. Restart incorporates trial period limitations into entitlement under the new programme in a number of significant respects.

ENDS

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